Jason Andrew Bond's Blog

Prodigies in Chafing - Five Star Trek TNG Characters That Rub Me the Wrong Way

I’ve been rewatching the series and most of the time I absolutely love the show, but let me tell you, there are some really, really irritating characters tucked away, which can generate such a strong facepalm reaction there should be a warning label to remove your glasses in the Netflix summary.

The Skin of Evil

This oily character would probably have been an effective villain if it hadn’t had three key faults.
ONE-
Its speech impediment is so nasty it can hardly be understood. “Bwahahaha, I’m going to kill Tasha Yar!”
“What?”
“I said I’m going to—”
“Can’t understand a word dude. Sounds like you’ve got a mouth full of motor oil and marbles.”
TWO-
He looks like a wookie who swam too close to a BP oil rig. A sorry sight yes but not really that threatening.
THREE-
The core reason he’s irritating though is that he’s too heartless with pointless motivation. I enjoy a villain I can relate to and can feel his or her cause. I can’t sympathize with this guy.

Lieutenant freakin’ Barclay

This nervous, simpering character needs no explanation. When I see his name on the show summary on Netflix I have to fight my urge to skip it. (I’m rewatching them all dammit!!!) How’d this head-case pass the psych evaluation to get into Star Fleet?
“Let’s see, test shows he’s stark raving nuts with a tendency for lewd holodeck behavior. Let’s put him in charge of something with antimatter.”
Barclay needs to go back to welding armor plating onto semis (If you get that… you’re cool).

All Ferengi

I love how these guys first show up as uber powerful aliens with massive ships chocked full o’ scary tech. However, they proceed to break down into bad likenesses of horny chimpanzees.
Data- “According to our records, the Ferengi throw poo.”
Troy- “It’s a cultural practice we must respect.”
Could we make a villain more irritating? Well… yes, but then I’d definitely start skipping episodes.

Any character who plays a snobby Chopin piece.
Seriously, is everyone in the future a prodigy of boring? Where’s the 24th century’s Deadmau5?
Jordi- “Where are you going?”
Dr. Crusher- “I’m heading over to the Rave in 10 Forward. O’Brien’s DJ’ing.”
Jordi- “NICE!”
Sadly this pulls one of my beloved characters (Data) into the mix. He is the only one who gets a pass, but BARELY because isn’t going to a concert by him the equivalent of sitting down to listen to one of those automated Yamaha pianos sew through a few tunes?
“Are you going to come to my recital of Piano Sonata number 1?”
“No… HELL no. I’m going to a Q-tip Jitsu match with Riker on Risa.”
If you haven’t seen Q-tip Jitsu, you should study Riker and his father’s fights. The outfits are… while not instilling great respect… are… well… they’re ridiculous.

Dr. Katherine Polaski

I couldn’t stand the combative nature of this character. Conflict between characters should have grounds in something the audience can identify with. Someone once told me it was just that I didn’t like strong female characters. No, I don’t like rude characters. True strength has little to do with unwarranted brashness. Can you imagine working with her? She’d pronounce your name wrong, and when you corrected her, she’d scan you as she accused you of having a circuit for hurt feelings. Stuff it doc! When Crusher showed back up in season 3 I could have hugged her.

What characters make you groan when they come on screen?

Free Nachos--the Secret to Life, the Universe, and Everything

I had an interesting experience during a recent trip to L.A. When we arrived at our hotel, tired and ready to rest, the clerk told us complimentary snacks and drinks would be served for two hours in the center courtyard of the hotel. Free snacks and drinks!?!? You’ve got my attention. We parked the car, ditched our bags in the room, and went to the courtyard. There we found everything from a nacho bar, to popcorn, to free sodas, and beers. Free beers!

Best. Hotel. EVER.

I sat down with my loot in a fabulous mood. As our group talked, I heard the professionally dressed woman at the next table say, “Well I don’t know about yours, but our rental car is awful. Whenever you turn in bonus miles for a car, they give you the run down ones.”

My ears perked up. This woman got free food, a free glass of wine, and a free freakin’ car! Must be clean livin’. …but she was complaining. She wasn’t being rude, and she wasn’t tearing anyone down, but as I ate my free nachos, something I’ve been aware of for some time came back into my thoughts. It might not have in another setting. I mean, free nachos… gimme a break! We have a running family joke that goes like this: when you’re telling a story and begin to realize that it’s going to be a dud, just end the story by finding five dollars or getting free nachos. …and here we were eating free nachos. Best. Story. EVER.

Yet this woman wasn’t happy. I’ve come to understand an important truth: I can only focus on one thing at a time. Multitasking is an illusion. Studies have shown that those who try to multitask too aggressively create a drop in quality across their entire workload. Why? The human mind can think about only one thing at a time. Now don’t kid yourself here. We can switch back and forth, but we have a single processor.

If we can only focus on one thing at a time… what will it be? I now know (wish I knew it then) that I have a choice on what I focus on, what I focus on becomes habitual, and what I focus on habitually becomes my reality. At the end of a day with equally bad and good elements, what do I tell my wife about when I come in the door? You can bet I tell her about the jerk who tailgated me. I mean who the heck drives like that? Meanwhile, I’m not focusing on the fact that the other 237 drivers I interacted with on the freeway were safe and courteous.

Negativity is a difficult habit to break. I learned at an early age to focus my attentions on the negative aspects of life.

“Don’t touch that table,” my mom would say, “it looks dirty.”

“Stay away from that tiger,” my dad would say, “it looks hungry.”

Jeeze.

Being able to see the negative side of the world is critically important. If I can’t effectively assess dangers, I can’t make good decisions about them. This summer a high school girl in our town, driving alone on the freeway, rolled her car end over end because she was texting, a good example of someone who maybe could use a moment to consider negative outcomes a bit more.

I grew up to far on the other side. I came to a point in which worry and negativity was shutting down my life. What I worried about wasn’t helping me be better off. When a tailgater snuggles in behind me on the freeway, sure I need to increase my own following distance and watch out for problems, but beyond that, how does brooding over the lack of respect the person is showing me move me forward? Simply put, it doesn’t.

I’ve finally learned the value of actively choosing what I’m thinking about. I have a choice on what to focus on. I have control. So, when we got to LA, tired and late, what did I focus on? You bet I focused on free freakin’ nachos, and I was happy. In younger years, I might have spent time thinking about the security lines at the airport, or how difficult travel is on my 6’3” frame, or the delay at the rental car agency, but none of that would serve me. If it isn’t going to serve me, I’ve decided I want to let it go.

How do I let it go? My personal key is gratitude. Asking myself what I am sincerely grateful for pulls me out of a funk faster than anything I’ve yet found. What was that professional looking woman grateful for? I have no idea. She was so caught up in what she considered a slight that she not only was taking over her own day with it, she was taking up everyone around her with it as well!

I know this to be true: What we focus on becomes our reality, but that reality is relative to what we choose to focus on. I mean give me a break, she had free nachos in front of her and chose to spend her evening focusing on dirty rental cars? Seems like a missed opportunity to have an awesome night if you ask me.

Are you grateful for your nachos? :)

No D’Arce Choke? No Problem!

Have you ever had that feeling that no matter what you do, you’re getting nowhere? That feeling is an old… friend of mine. However, lack of progress is a dangerous illusion.

I’ve recently been reading the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. I highly recommend it. His argument that the little things we do daily, over time, lead up to the positive or negative outcomes of our lives is dead on. He states several times that these positive or negative changes are subtle. I couldn’t agree with this more based on my experience in martial arts training.

I go to class and lose. I learn a new variation of D’Arce choke or arm bar from spider guard, try to apply it, and my opponent slips free. The next day, I get submitted… and the next. However, the other day, I arm-dragged my instructor, got him in a traditional rear-naked choke and he tapped. I let him go and thought, wait a minute… I just tapped Joey! Two freakin’ years, and I finally won! You’ll forgive me if I took a moment to celebrate.

That seemed to be a significant change in my game, but the truth of the matter is, I’d been getting closer and closer to that moment each day I attended class. When we show up to face our challenges, millimeter by millimeter, we improve. The dangerous part is, we can’t feel the change, which is the largest reason people give up. The trouble is inherent in our primary motivation. We are programmed to need confirmation that our actions are leading to success.

Olson makes the comparison to turning the light on in a dark room. “When you enter a darkened room, why does your hand reach out for the light switch? Because you know that when you hit the switch, the light will go on.” (The Slight Edge, 2011, p.46) He offers the comical image of people giving themselves positive assurances before reaching for the light switch. We don’t need self-talk in this situation because we know flipping the switch will result in the outcome we want.

When we’re reaching for challenges beyond illuminating a room, we have to operate not on assurances, but a kind of faith. We must believe that, despite all appearances, when we show up daily, we are moving in the right direction. Most new martial artists quit after they achieve yellow belt. Why? Because they had a vision of what training would look like, and at first, there is a quickness and excitement to learning—new kicks, punches, throws, etc. The light comes on when we throw the switch. However, as the first year wanes, the learning seems to slow and can become boring. Students throw the switch, but there is little illumination. They feel the same day after day, even worse as the challenges increase. In lack of understanding in the process, they lose motivation and quit.

However, if we keep showing up no matter what the challenge is, one day the light does come on. Rarely at first, but after a while we begin to realize that if we make small, good choices today, then do it again when tomorrow is today, and do that every day, then the forward motion becomes a bit like running down the other side of the mountain.

For more detail check out www.TheSlightEdge.org. I think it’s worth a look.

No Fear... Sort of.

I’m not afraid to die.

Seriously I’m not, but death still scares the hell out of me.

When I was 18, I had the profound experience of wrecking a motorcycle at 85 miles an hour off a cliff on Mary’s Peak, the highest point in Oregon’s Coastal Mountain Range. While my motorcycle hit a curb and flipped up in the air and over the cliff’s edge, I missed the curb, hit the grass, flipped onto my hands and feet and slid to a stop one foot from the edge. I stood up. The rider behind me, who thought I’d gone over, said it was as if I’d been resurrected.

It was a resurrection of sorts. I call September 7th, 1991 my second birthday. While I was sliding toward the cliff-edge, I thought, “Well, this is it. I guess I’m going to find out what death is.” At that moment, a profound peace overwhelmed me. I’ve since come to understand it as a kind of forced Zen state in which I fully accepted my fate.

When I realized I was still alive, I knew my life had changed but couldn’t quite articulate how. I didn’t have an epiphany or feel a need to connect with those I love. I simply felt different. As the years passed, however, I came to realize that I no longer feared dying.

Being fearless is not being stupid. I didn’t take bigger risks, in fact I took fewer deadly risks (such as racing motorcycles on open roads), because I valued my life so much more. Since that time I can sit still, feel my heart beating, and understand that each beat is one fewer I have to live by. In accepting the end and returning from that precipice, I understand how precious our living days are, and how we must get the most from them. Being alive is a dazzling gift to which we are not entitled.

The trouble I have is not with my own death but with others’. I’ve never truly faced the loss of someone close to me. I’ve lost grandparents, but we grew up distant. Our family has lost friends, and a kid I knew in high school died in a car crash

, but I’ve not lost someone sincerely dear to my heart. I’ve never had to face true grief. It scares the hell out of me because I’m standing at the cusp of it now. In some way, we all are.

I may be fearless when it comes to my own death, as I’ve seen the peace that lies at its doorway; but for someone else, when I go on living, the loss scares me so much I can barely think of it. I know I have only one choice, though: face it head on, survive it, and do the best I can by those I love who are still here.

When I “roughed in” this post, I was thinking of my old lab, Tank, who was downstairs as I wrote. I didn't know then how I would handle the loss of a dear friend. Today, as I edit this post, he is gone, and I know what it means to lose someone dear. I miss him terribly, but I am so grateful for having had him in my life. He taught me a great many things, the final lesson being how to face grief. May you rest in that deep peace friend.

Dreadnaught Crusher

I’ve recently been listening to the audio book of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (HIGHLY recommended). Wil Wheaton does a superb narration. Having recently watched the newest reboot of Star Trek (totally impressed by the way) I got to thinking about other reboots or future possibilities. Suppose war breaks out (as is suggested in some futures) and Wesley, now a captain, goes rogue through horrific PTSD. I imagine him in a Khan-esque, haywire rampage in which he would be totally unstoppable. Let’s face it—in The Next Generation, whenever stuff got REALLY heavy, the experienced officers always had to rely on the wünderkind Crusher to save their butts. Now he’s the predator, and vicious he will be. Here are five reasons he’ll crack in the future and make Khan’s rampage look like a Tokyo sound stage:

1-An overbearing/absent mother. Statistically doctor’s kids freak out more often (ask me, I know).
2-Dead father. Nuff said.
3-Crap father figures. Give me a break; he never had a chance. Picard hates anyone under thirty-five, and Riker’s only gonna teach him how to pick up blues house slinkers (an important skill perhaps, but character building it is not).
4-The sweaters. Anyone forced to wear those sweaters is doomed to crack.
5-Sexual repression. Hot mother leads to Freudian denial leads to confused feelings. (Note #4 adorned with prevalent rainbow patterns.)

It’s gonna be a bloodbath folks.

Climb On

This has been a strange summer. I feel as though my second novel is eating my brain. Seriously… it’s taking over my life. Even with the help of a professional editor, it feels like a wall of work towering up into the sky and slowly tipping over. Despite this feeling, I have to admit that I’m almost done.

Before I started the project, I had heard that writing the second novel would be more difficult than the first. That has been true in some areas, and not so much in others. In some ways it has been easier. During the writing of my first novel, I learned a great deal about how I work. I learned that when I review my rough draft material, if I expect it to read well, I feel absolutely depressed when it doesn't. To prevent this feeling, I lowered my expectations of my initial work and began to trust in the editing process.

Due to those lowered expectations, I felt much more freedom writing the second book’s rough draft. I wrote down what was in my head, good or bad, with the understanding that I could fix it later. Upon reviewing the draft, I found it to be as expected… rough. I had major surgery to perform. Whole characters had to be added, changed, and/or removed, sometimes by pain of death. As I learned to trust the editing process, I became more comfortable with it, despite the workload.

But not all problems are so easily solved. One area that has been especially difficult in writing this second novel is worrying about readers’ expectations. Writers should concern themselves with being entertaining to readers, but in this second book I felt I second guessed myself far too many times. I continually wondered if those who gave me positive feedback on my first work would like this current book.

This second book does take some risks. I have published a successful sci-fi action story. The publishing houses would have me write another one like it. I will… next. However, the one theme that comes up time and time again when reading books on writing by best-selling authors is that a writer must not chase a market. Instead, the writer must chase his or her heart. This time round, my heart gave me a modern day horror/thriller/action hybrid.

So to follow my heart, I have to fly in the face of what the professional publishers would advise. It’s a risk, but I didn’t become a writer to be light-hearted and timid. All the best paths require at least some degree of bravery in the face of possible failure. If not, there’s no sense of adventure, no thrill.

As I finish initial editing on Mortal Remains, the feeling of something completed and honed overwhelms me. It's my pay off, why I keep writing. The process can be thankless and tiring, and I have often doubted my convictions, but in the end, no matter how long it takes, that moment of completion fills my heart to overflowing. To anyone who is compelled to dedicate his or her life to writing—the road is steep and stony, but the view on the summit is wide and beautiful. Climb on.

Senate Ovesight - LCDR Stacy Zack

United States Senate Oversight Hearing re:
Admiral Samuel William Cantwell’s Nomination for Secretary of Defense
Tuesday: May 15th, 2179 @ 11:35 AM Eastern Time
Capitol Hill, E1.610, Office of Senator Geoffrey Sundin
Interview with LCDR Stacy Zack, Naval Special Warfare.

Those Present:
Senator Geoffrey Sundin
LCDR Stacy Zack
CDR Jonathan Stringer (unsolicited)

--------------------------------------

Sen. Sundin: Thank you for meeting with me.

LCDR Zack: Commander said I had no choice.

Sen. Sundin: I see. If I had given you a choice, would you have come?

LCDR Zack: No.

Sen. Sundin: Why not?

LCDR Zack: Because this is a waste of my time.

Sen. Sundin: How so?

LCDR Zack: (sighs) We all know what you’re looking for, and you’re not going to find it. Admiral Cantwell made one mistake ten years ago. He was totally open about it. There’s nothing more to find.

Sen. Sundin: And how would you know there is nothing more?

LCDR Zack: I was there.

Sen. Sundin: Not in the beginning.

LCDR Zack: Yes, of course, not in the beginning, but—

Sen. Sundin: Let’s stay focused on my questions. When you’ve answered them to my satisfaction, we may have time for a personal statement.

LCDR Zack: (mumbles under breath) Waste of ******* time.

Sen. Sundin: Excuse me? (pause) Lieutenant Commander Zack, let me remind you that you are still under oath in these proceedings, and failure to cooperate—

LCDR Zack: Okay, I get it; just ask me your questions so I can get back to work. I don’t have a desk job where I can sit around talking all day.

Sen. Sundin: Ms. Zack, the goals of this inquiry are not malevolent. We simply want to know if the President’s nomination is an acceptable fit for the country.

LCDR Zack: Lieutenant Commander.

Sen. Sundin: What?

LCDR Zack: I didn’t bust my *** for the last 12 years for you to talk to me like a little girl.

Sen. Sundin: I believe you’re thinking of “Miss” M-I-S-S.

LCDR Zack: Lieutenant Commander.

Sen. Sundin: Fine, Lieutenant Commander.

LCDR Zack: Thank you.

Sen. Sundin: Let the record show that all references in this conversation to ‘Admiral Cantwell,’ or any variation, will refer to one Admiral Samuel William Cantwell, service number XXX-XX-XXXX. Now Ms. Zack, please let me know the first time you met Admiral Cantwell.

LCDR Zack: (sighs) I met him well after the incident. If you read the reports—

Sen. Sundin: Let’s just focus on the question, shall we?

(pause)

Sen. Sundin: I’ll take your silence for agreement. (papers shuffling) When you interacted with Maxine King, did she discuss Admiral Cantwell?

LCDR Zack: No.

Sen. Sundin: When you first interacted with her, of what did you speak?

LCDR Zack: Of what did we speak? We didn’t really talk. I bit her ******* face off.

Sen. Sundin: Ma’am, I’ll ask you to keep an appropriate tone. (pause) Last month we interviewed Mrs. King at the Puget Sound Naval Brig’s Psychiatric Facility, and she suggested that you two had had detailed conversations regarding Admiral Cantwell.

LCDR Zack: Maxine King is insane.

Sen. Sundin: Some consider her mentally unstable, but she has made a great deal of progress over the last decade.

LCDR Zack: The only progress I’d like to see her make is toward the grave.

Sen. Sundin: So you have hostile intensions toward her?

LCDR Zack: No. Don’t put words in my mouth. What I’m saying is, the day she dies, I’ll raise a glass to see her off to Hell. Beyond that I’m not suggesting anything.

Sen. Sundin: I see. Well, let’s move on. Mr. Jeffrey Holt is—

LCDR Zack: I thought this was supposed to be about Cantwell.

Sen. Sundin: Well, we must discuss the credentials of the Admiral’s social circles and Mr. Holt—

LCDR Zack: Is the only reason we didn’t spend the last decade in a guerilla war. You know, this is exactly the kind of ingratitude I expect from people like you. We save your ***** so you can turn around and judge us.

Sen. Sundin: No one is judging you Lieutenant Commander.

LCDR Zack: Right.

Sen. Sundin: Lieutenant Commander, your attitude is— (door opens) Excuse me, this is a private session; I asked to not be disturbed.

CDR Stringer: I apologize, Senator. I’m Commander Stringer of Naval Special Warfare, Lieutenant Commander Zack needs to come with me right away.

Sen. Sundin: No. I have unanswered questions.

CDR Stringer: I do apologize sir, but this is the end of the interview. We have a situation. The Lieutenant Commander and I must leave. Your interview will have to wait for another time.

Sen. Sundin: No they will not. This is absolutely unaccept—

CDR Stringer: Let’s go Zack.

Sen. Sundin: If you leave this room, I’ll have you both court martialed.

CDR Stringer: Zack, I’m giving you a direct order to come with me. I hold full responsibility.

Sen. Sundin: And you’ll answer for it.

CDR Stringer: Senator, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about your political aspirations at a time like this. I’d go home and tell your children you love them. (door slams shut)

The Death of Writer's Block

Writer’s block is an interesting beast. It would be something like a stone mason suddenly being unable to lift a rock, or move a trowel. I understand that writer’s block is a real thing. I’ve talked with people who’ve had it and read essays by bestsellers who’ve been trumped by it. However, when asked if I get writer’s block, my answer is, “no, never.” That’s a bold claim, but it’s true.

My immunity was given to me by an infamous, local high school teacher named Robert Baldwin. He was an “against-the-grain” kind of guy. Every day he violated the school dress code with sandals and jeans. He added to this a tan suit-coat with leather elbow patches. While that attire brought him close to a stereotype, day after day he broke down our assumptions of him. Once, a linebacker from the football team—an intelligent young man—argued his case as to why an assignment wasn’t worth his time. Baldwin heard him out and then offered a deal. They would arm wrestle for it; if the student won, he didn’t have to do the paper. If he lost, he’d have to double the word content. We learned two things that day: One, Baldwin used to be a logger; two, if you want to keep your dignity, do not arm wrestle a logger.

While that’s a great story, Baldwin gave me much more than fun stories to tell; he gave me the single most important wrench in my writing toolbox: freewriting. One of the requirements of his class was to write in a spiral notebook every day. There were no content guidelines, only quantity. If we hit a certain number of pages at the end of the term, we’d receive an ‘A’ on the notebook.

When I opened that spiral notebook and inked the first word, I had no idea of the impact it would have. That first freewrite flowed into thousands of hand-written and typed pages, and over the next twenty years, it would permanently destroy writer’s block.

One of my rituals as I begin writing for the day is to freewrite: a one-page, single-spaced brain-dump. When I’m done, I open the documents I am currently working on, be they editing or rough drafting, and begin work. I’m in no way saying I don’t get stuck, because I do. It’s what I do the moment I feel stuck that saves me from the dreaded block. I leave my journal open as I work, and when I find myself at a dead end, I go back and freewrite. I’ll write a short story about the character’s past, or imagine what’s happening in the room adjacent to the scene I’m working on—ANYTHING related to the story. There are no right or wrong answers. Invariably I find my characters opening up to me with long forgotten secrets that send my plots off in unexpected directions.

Over the past twenty years I’ve spend hundreds of hours freewriting. Today, I can type at 100+ wpm and essentially record what I’m day-dreaming in real time. Freewriting has allowed me to open the gateway to that well of creative dark matter that is so difficult to access during a spell of writer’s block, and for that I will be forever in Robert Baldwin’s debt.

So what good is, “Do this for twenty years,” for new writers who want to write well today? Here’s the reality: When starting out, there is no way to write well today. That doesn’t mean you should shut the laptop and move on. The following applies to any pursuit in life: You should work today for where you can be next year and the year after that. What can you do today and every day from here to the New Year? What effect would daily work have on the desired skill if you did this for the next decade? Is putting forth that level of dedicated effort worth it?

You damn well better believe it is.

Coming Home, Injured and Tired, with a Head Full of Memories

I’m a bit late to the party talking about Michael Monsoor, but I want to mention him; maybe not so much to discuss what he did, but to discuss those like him. Monsoor, a U.S. Navy SEAL, died in Al Ramadi, Iraq on September 29th, 2006. His official U.S. Navy biography (www.Navy.mil) states:

* On that day, Monsoor was part of a sniper overwatch security position with three other SEALs and eight Iraqi Army (IA) soldiers. An insurgent closed in and threw a fragmentation grenade into the overwatch position. The grenade hit Monsoor in the chest before falling to the ground. Positioned next to the single exit, Monsoor was the only one who could have escaped harm. Instead, he dropped onto the grenade to shield the others from the blast. Monsoor died approximately 30 minutes later from wounds sustained from the blast. Because of Petty Officer Monsoor’s actions, he saved the lives of his 3 teammates and the IA soldiers.

I will not attempt to interpret the above event. I don’t want to disrespect it in any way. What I will say is that I am humbled by the sacrifice. When I think about the day-to-day decisions we face stateside (burger or sandwich) or that which causes us stress (jerk neighbor with a barking dog) and compare these with the risks and related decisions Monsoor lived and died with… the conclusion seems obvious.

What struck me more powerfully than Monsoor’s actions was what his sister said during an interview with CNN.com. When speaking of her brother, she asked us to be mindful that events like the one that cost her brother his life happen every day. This is what causes me pause. Michael Monsoor stands out because his sacrifice was so dramatic, and I’m glad to remember him, yet he is far from alone. There are thousands of men and women with the dedication and willingness to leave the safety of their hometowns and risk their lives. Surely none want to be injured or lose their lives, but they all know it is possible and sign on despite the risks.

When the soldiers complete their tours and return home, I believe we, who live in the peace created by their efforts, should step up and support them. That’s why I have decided to dedicate a portion of the profits from Hammerhead to support disabled veterans. I love my country and the life my family and I have here. I may not always agree with the politicians making decisions, but I will always support those who go and risk and sacrifice. When these men and women return home, they need and deserve our support.

I ask those reading this to consider their lives, and hold them up in light of those who leave behind coffee stands, tablet computers, and Saturday nights on the town in order to fight so we may have those things. Picture yourself in their shoes for a moment. Imagine yourself parked on a mountain road, sitting in the canvas seat of a Humvie. Sunlight scatters off the shattered rear view mirror. You haven’t showered in three months, and you still have bloods stains on the right shoulder of your BDU’s from the soldier who used to ride beside you. Michael Monsoor gave his life so that his teammates could come home. His struggle is over, and may he rest in peace. But as his sister asked of us, we must remember there are thousands like him, and when those men and women come home—injured and tired, with a head full of memories—we need to be there for them. We should be.

www.JasonAndrewBond.com/veterans

This post was originally published on my blog at: Blog.JasonAndrewBond.com

Siren's Song

I’m floating thirty feet under the surface of Puget Sound in a diffuse, sage-hued light. As I breathe in, my regulator’s second stage feeds me a cybernetic rush of air. Exhaling, roiling bubbles surround me, billowing past my mask, ears, and neck. I’m hovering three feet above a tire reef, and my sphere of visibility fades away to nothingness fifteen feet away. Five minutes earlier, swimming out to the reef, I found myself with fifteen inches. Surrounded by suspended muck and bits of kelp, I kept up steady fin kicks as I held my compass close to my mask. After a few moments, I broke out of the clouding turbidity into an experience I will remember the rest of my life.

At forty-seven degrees, I can feel the water leeching heat away from the core of my chest through fourteen millimeters of neoprene wetsuit. William, a dive master with more than a decade of experience, motions me over to a tire, towering white anemones crowning its upper tread. I give a gentle kick and glide toward him. As I approach, he reaches into the tire and draws out an eighteen-inch-long sea cucumber, green-brown in the filtered light and bristling with fleshy spikes. He sets the little beast in my hand. It has almost no weight here, and I can’t really feel its softball sized girth through my neoprene glove. But still, it’s there in my hand, a living creature from the floor of the ocean.

Given the context of my life, I cannot quite convince myself that what I’m experiencing is real. As a child, I spent years living on the Oregon coast and would often sit on the docks staring at the cold waters of Yaquina bay. I’d look beneath the bending surface, down the length of the submerged piers, slick with sea weed and barnacles, my gaze stopping where the stout supports faded away in the jade-darkness. I felt a siren’s song rising up from that unknown, hypnotic and malicious. Something evil and unknowable lay down there, something that would swallow me whole if it could just get me close enough.

But now I’m down here, surrounded by life, holding it in my own hand. I was right to think this place would consume me, but not as I expected. I understand now that the sirens who called to me when I was young, while dangerous, aren’t evil. Down here the heartbeat of the world pulses in a deep rhythm, perilous and beautiful. It fills my heart, and makes me feel young.

After a few moments, I set the sea cucumber back in the tire where William found it. I look over at him, and he gives me a thumbs-up. Above him, I see a school of some kind of fish, no idea what they are, drifting past. The fish seem tropical in shape and formation but have the hard-core, rock-faced coloring of this northern Pacific Ocean. William turns away and kicks his fins. As he exhales, flattened bubbles rise away from him. I watch them loft toward the soft glow above. The bubbles vanish beyond our line of visibility as they continue on toward the surface. Looking back at the sea floor, I see a crab scuttling by, claws up.

I float over the crab like a wraith in the fog of an old church graveyard, watching it side-step away. As the crab disappears among white and rust-colored anemones, I think of what a strange career I have chosen. I had to write about diving and couldn’t figure out how the scene would feel, so I had to come out here and live it. Writing has drawn me out into areas of life I otherwise would not have experienced, and this bitter-cold place is no exception. In sinking down into this world, I am confronted with a truth, and I can already feel it driving me forward anew. Hovering over this reef, suspended in the wild, I have no doubts that there is absolutely no way to fail when you are whole-heartedly chasing your dreams.

…

Here’s to dive masters William, Larry, and Jim for an amazing experience. I appreciate you sharing your love of diving with me. I also appreciate the excellent course material put together by PADI. If anyone is interested in diving, I cannot recommend this organization highly enough. www.PADI.com

Now to get that diving scene re-written…

Jason

This post was originally published on my blog at: Blog.JasonAndrewBond.com