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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
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2:25 am - I Miss You Grandma
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| Thursday, August 31st, 2006
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3:52 pm - Quiz!
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Took a second at work to do this. This is what I got:
Take the Villain quiz.
(Some of the questions and answers are fantastic. Great for a second or 2 if you're bored)
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, August 14th, 2006
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3:01 pm - The Road Not Taken......
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Had a poem stuck in my head......somehow, I feel like I'm back in high school English.
The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Not quite as catchy as Shania Twain. But equally as thought provoking.
current mood:  thoughtful
current music: Shania Twain - Hate to Love
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, July 17th, 2006
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11:33 pm - Holodecks.....and the Nature of Reality.
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Hello again.
Lately, I've found myself in a rather philosophical mindset. I've stopped to question the nature of a great many things as of late.
Oddly, I find myself mulling over the nature of reality, sparked by Star Trek: The Next Generation.
I've paused to consider the impact of a particular bit of technology presented in that show. The holodeck. Through the use of photon emitters, tractor beams, replicators (not to be confused with the Stargate ones....), and force field technology, the computer can create people, objects, animals, and many, many other things. If one were industrious enough, they could program an entire world within it.
So I stopped to formulate a premise:
Say you were a crew member on the Enterprise. You went on a simple away mission, and were beamed back. A fairly standard procedure on that show.
You finish your mission, then go about your life (Like you do...),working your station shifts, playing in a weekly poker game, making communiques to your Grandma, asking out the cute ensign on Deck 26. You make new friends, and mourn the loss of old friends killed in the line of duty.You go to several more planets, several more away missions, and show courage in the face of danger, show novel ways to solve problems, all those things that will serve to make you a fine officer. You get promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant (JG) and on up, eventually landing at Lieutenant Commander. Your dates with that ensign blossom into a deeper relationship, you marry, and think of transferring to a starbase or nice planet to try and start a family of your very own. Everything's going along, following your plan (Though not exactly....it's certianly good enough), careerwise, in your love life, and amongst your friends, for the most part.
One day, as you are working on the bridge, you notice out of the corner of your eye, that the starboard wall "flickers" and you catch, just for a second, the black with orange borders, squares of a holodeck wall. You stand up to investigate, confused, and seconds later, the bridge fades away, leaving you in the black and orange land of the inside of the Holodeck. The arch is clearly visible. With the realization that you were indeed living in a holographic projection, numbly, you stumble out of the holodeck into the corridor.
(I'm sure this is confusing, but bear with me. There's still a point to all this. It's not just random rambling.)
As you stand out there, trying desperately to make sense of what happened to you, you start to wonder.
1. How long was I in there?
2. Did I really spend that much time in the Holodeck?
3. What was real there?
The last question is certianly the hardest one to answer.
What is the nature of reality? Is reality that which we see and feel, which we detect and interact with through our senses? Or is there a transcendent truth which defines reality in a concrete, definite manner outside of what we can perceive? What is the nature of truth?
In an attempt to answer these broader questions, questions narrower in scope started to form, and you had hoped that answers to these narrower questions would shed light, would bring perspective, and that the amalgamation of the answers to the narrower questions would start to form the basis of an answer to the broader questions posed.
Should you have mourned the loss of your crewmates and friends, even though they have been proven to be nothing more than complex algorithms in a program?
Was the love that you felt for the cute ensign you married real as well? Or was it simply a complex crush ( Considering that in the Star Trek universe that it is nigh on impossible for a computer to have true emotion, the feelings would have to be one-sided, and therefore a crush.) on an intricate weaving of force field, tractor beam, and photon emitter technology; a fancy facade, for lack of a better term?
Certianly, your life on the holodeck was not real, in a conventional sense. But does it follow that because that experience was not real, that your entire life there was a complex fantasy, that the memories and feelings were not real as well? Does the fact that your experience was untrue, unreal, necessarily negate the feelings and memories that you had there?
Should they be labeled as untrue and irrelevant to the "new" life you've begun now that you've walked out of the holodeck?
Or should your recognize that they were untrue, but treasure the essence of the feelings and experience you shared, in much the same way that a person might enjoy the performance and show of a great actor on stage?
Or should you remember that they took place in an "unreal" environment, and still accept the experiences and memories as they were, because they in and of themselves, are true, despite taking place in an "unreal" environment? Can an "untrue" experience create "true" memories and feelings?
The manner in which your life played out there, was it a "real, true experience" (for lack of better terminology)? Or was it simply an unconscious projection of your desires, taken in by the computer and made manifest for you? How did you influence your experience there, if at all? And can the desires, the wishes, the sheer willpower of someone who wants something enough make it real, or does it remain a facade?
Does there exist a point, where a facade, an untruth, an illusion, becomes so complex that it is indistinguishable from reality? And if that point exists, does truth break down there?
Just a few thoughts that are running about my brain at this early morning hour. It's odd the things that you consider sometimes.
For those of you in a more philosophical mindset, who might wish to reply, I'd love to hear your thoughts and perspectives.
For those of you who actually read through that entire, borderline nonsensical, rambling post, I thank you, and hope you find the time, energy and desire to share your thoughts.
current mood: thoughtful
current music: Shania Twain - It Only Hurts When I Breathe
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, June 25th, 2006
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1:52 pm - Long Time, No Write
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Hey Everyone.
I know it's been a good long time since I've written anything here. A lot has happened to me since 2001, obviously. There are a lot of thoughts running through my head right now. I thought this might help me make more sense of them, make them sound more coherent, both for myself and for all the people I know.
I guess the first major thing I want to talk about is that my Grandma passed on. And I've finally come to terms with that. The words were hard to find, the things I wanted to say never seemed to come out quite right. I must admit, it was hard to talk with anyone, anyone at all about what happened, and why I felt the way I did. It was just about impossible to let people know that the reason I always looked so drained, and tired, and was so lethargic was the weight of working through this.
But I want everyone to know, I never wanted to make anyone sad, which made it all the more difficult. Maybe I could have shared this more, maybe I couldn't have, but I knew I needed to work through it.
So here goes my thoughts.
My Grandma, Lois Lillien Powers.
My Grandma was a wonderful lady. Not perfect, by any stretch, but wonderful nonetheless. And she was my Grandma. She was always there for me, for any of her children, for anyone in her family. She was quite possibly the most giving and accepting person that I've ever known.
Grandma had this extraordinary way of looking at the world, and letting you see it, and experience it. She could look at the worst things in the world and find the best things in it. Out of anyone I know, I can say without reservation that she was a truly good person. She took in the unwanted, the unloved, and made them feel loved, wanted, and needed. With a few soft, kind words, Grandma could put a difficult situation into perspective. Certianly not the wisdom of Solomon, but the wisdom of a kind-hearted old woman who had lived a lot of life.
There are many lessons that I've learned from her. There are many parts of her that have colored my life. She taught me to cook and to enjoy good food. There's nothing quite like her cold fried chicken and sweet tea on a warm summer day.
She taught me the simple pleasures of a good book, and always encouraged me to read and explore and figure out things in the world around me. She encouraged me to love science. She saved to buy me a telescope when I was eight so I could watch Halley's Comet go by. I wanted to see the cells in a piece of lettuce, so she got me a microscope next birthday. She would take me by the church yardsales in Bonanza to buy the next volumes of Funk and Wagnalls science books, which I read voraciously, and paid for with my tiny allowance from clearing the weeds from the gardens around. My love of science, my belief that there is nothing I can't figure out, was most definitely shaped and nurtured by her.
I could write a novel, I'm sure, about what my Grandma did for me, and what she meant to me. But I'm sure that you all know. If you don't, I'll be glad to talk about her and tell you.
But I can say without reservation that the loss of my Grandma was a great one.
Of course it is, and that yes, she is no longer in the world, but that does not mean that my life is diminished because she is gone. Her legacy will carry on through the world. The lives she touched, the way she helped shape mine. She is not gone, she lives within everyone who shared her life, and above all, she lives on within my heart and memories. And I don't think she would have had it any other way.
My Grandma will always be with me. She was my parent, my guardian, my teacher. Quite simply, she was my Grandma.
I realize now that the details of it are no longer important.
I realize that the time I got to spend with her before she passed out of this world was a precious gift. Not many people get the opprotunity to be completely honest about how they feel with someone. Not many people get the chance to tell a person that made an extraordinary difference, who was instrumental in making them the person that they are, how they did that, and what it meant to them. I never got to say everything I needed to, or wanted to, and neither did she, but that is completly ok.
What I did get to tell her that she was the best parent I could have ever asked for. I got to hold her hand late at night when she felt alone. I got to take her around to the fair, I got to take her to see old houses in Langell Valley. I got to spend time with her, making whatever wish I could of hers come true.
But most of all, I got to be there for her like she was for me. I felt I got one last chance to let her know that she made a difference in the world, that the world was better for having had her in it.
It took a lot of thought, a lot of sadness, a lot of grief, to come to this realization. It wasn't easy, but I needed to do it. I feel like I put my life on hold, to come to this realization, and in many ways, I feel like that was a mistake, but I needed to do this.
I feel now that I can talk about all these things, I can talk about how I felt, and how I feel now.
It's odd. I feel like I've awakened from a long slumber, and there are a lot of new thoughts running through my head. Maybe I'll find the words to post more.
For now, I'll just thank you for reading.
current mood: contemplative
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