Bryce Moore's Blog, page 104
August 26, 2019
Sunday Talk: On Understanding
This past General Conference, Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “Our purpose as we seek to learn and to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ must be to increase faith in God and in His divine plan of happiness and in Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice and to achieve lasting conversion. Such increased faith and conversion will help us make and keep covenants with God, thus strengthening our desire to follow Jesus and producing a genuine spiritual transformation in us—in other words, transforming us into a new creature, as taught by the Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians.4 This transformation will bring us a more happy, productive, and healthy life and help us to maintain an eternal perspective.”
He proceeds to go into great detail about the various ways we can learn and teach other people. Parents teaching children. Members learning from others by example. Overcoming instances where what is taught is rejected or ignored. As a professional librarian, I can relate, and I have more than a little to say on the subject of teaching and learning.
A case in point: academic librarians deal primarily with a thing we call “information literacy.” It’s our goal to help students get to the point where they can find, evaluate, and use information effectively in their lives. I spend a good chunk of time at work finding research for other people. I’ve done it so often and in so many different disciplines by now that it’s second nature to me. I can figure out keywords on the fly and jam them together in the right way to find just about anything. When people come to the desk asking for help, however, I can’t just breeze through the search the same way I would if I were doing it on my own. Simply finding them the information they need isn’t as useful as teaching them how to find it on their own–not if I want to make them information literate. To do that, I have to go through the same search basics every time. Not because the students are slow learners, but because it’s a new experience for each new student.
One of the reasons I’ve gotten so good at searching is because I’ve taught the basics to other people so many times. I’ve used all sorts of different search topics and stumbled through the different databases, learning from experience which are useful in which instances. Before you can teach someone, it’s best to know the material thoroughly. They’ll still ask you questions you don’t know the answer to, however, no matter how well prepared you are. It’s okay to admit when you don’t know the answer right away. We’re human. No one is omniscient, no matter how much some people would like you to believe that.
In the church, I think we sometimes would like to know more than we actually do. We don’t just believe something. We know it. And while there are certainly instances in the gospel that we can know, there are other areas where I think we try to take this principle too far. I know prayer works, because I’ve used it and seen its effects. I know God exists, because I’ve prayed to Him, felt His love, and seen His hand at work in my life and the lives of others. I believe the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I believe we are led by a prophet today. I believe in Christ. I know following the Word of Wisdom has helped me live a healthier life. I know following church teachings has enriched my life.
When I’m teaching students, I’m open with the things I don’t know, because I’m confident I have the tools I need to be able to fund the answers, and I want them to have that same confidence. In church, my goal is the same. Do I know the answers to all of life’s questions? Definitely not. I know we like to claim that we have such a great understanding of where we came from, why we’re here, and where we’re going, but I would argue that our understanding, while perhaps relatively more robust compared to some other religions, is still quite shallow. We know where we’re going? Okay. Where, exactly? What will it look like? What will we do there, precisely? Where will we live? How will our days be filled? Will there even be days to fill, or will time be irrelevant? As soon as we get into specifics, the certainty of our knowledge starts to crumble. That doesn’t bother me, however, because I feel like I’m spiritually literate. I have the tools I need to find the answers to the things I need to know, as I need to know them. There’s no need for me to know the exact daily routine of the afterlife. I need to focus on the here and now–on the traits in myself I need to improve to become more Christlike.
I didn’t become information literate or spiritually literate overnight, however. It took time and effort to do both, filled with false starts and frustrations at times.
I’ve been working on doing family history research for my wife’s side of the family. She’s from Slovakia, and the records there have all been digitized. With a couple of clicks of the mouse, you can be up to your eyeballs in marriage records from the 17 and 1800s. But not only are those marriage records in cursive that’s sometimes hard to decipher, they’re also in Hungarian, German, Czech, Slovak, or Latin. Worse still, the names change based on the language of the record. What might be Gyrogy in a birth record is Gjrj in the marriage record. Jan could be Johan or Johannis. Last names change spellings, and sometimes nicknames are used instead of last names. When I first looked at those documents, I thought there was no chance I’d ever be able to understand them. However, with practice and familiarity, just about anything can be dealt with.
First, you have to recognize that the records follow patterns. Marriage records tend to stick together, and they’re organized by year. So just because something was in Hungarian and now it’s in Slovak doesn’t mean it’s changed topics. The names of the husband and wife are still in the same places, for example. Figure out the pattern, and you can figure out the page. That holds true in other areas of life as well. With information, if you get to know the ins and outs of one database, you can use that knowledge when you move onto a new one, looking for the underlying structure that helps you know how to navigate something that might seem bewildering at first. Spiritually, we learn line upon line, precept upon precept. Work to improve yourself in one area, and it’s my experience that you’ll find the things you learned here will transfer over when it comes time to learn something new. If nothing else, you’ll know that you can do hard things.
But there are still times when we’ve identified the language, know what sort of record it is we’re looking at, but still can’t make heads or tails of the handwriting. Is that a t or an l? Is that an ink blot, or were they dotting an i at some point? At times like this, I wish I had the original scribe next to me to ask questions–or at least someone who’s familiar with the handwriting.
This reminds me of the story from the New Testament that Elder Soares referred to in his talk.
26 And the aangel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.
27 And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to aworship,
28 Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet.
29 Then the aSpirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.
30 And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
31 And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
32 The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a alamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:
33 In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.
34 And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him aJesus.
In this excerpt from the New Testament, the eunuch illustrates one of the quickest, most effective ways of learning: turning to someone else for guidance. Of course, this only works if we’re willing to actually listen to the person we’re turning to. How many of us have had people volunteer information when we’re not looking for it? Or we’ve ignored good information because we thought we knew better?
A few months ago, I was convinced my Prius was having battery issues. When I tried to start the car, it sputtered and stopped, and it was only after letting it rest for a while that it managed to start up at last. Confused and concerned, I did what any self-respecting man of modern thinking would do: I turned to the internet. After a couple of hours of research, I was convinced the car battery was on its last legs, and I made an appointment with my mechanic to confirm my suspicions.
This mechanic and I have had a long work relationship. I’d been taking my cars to him ever since I moved to Maine twelve years ago, and I trusted his opinion. He wasn’t someone who would tell me something was wrong with my car just so he could make some money on an unneeded “repair.” When I described the difficulty I’d been having, he frowned. “Sounds like your battery was drained too much one time, but it’s gotten over it. Did that happen at all?”
Actually, it had. One of my kids had helpfully left the door open overnight, and when I’d gotten to the car in the morning, the light had been on. But the car had still started up, and I didn’t think that explained the new problems. Still, my mechanic was reluctant to look at the issue. “Just drive it for a while, and if it keeps happening, we can take a look.” That wasn’t enough for me. My mind was filled with images of me being stranded in some remote parking lot, and so I insisted he take a look. I’d done all that research, after all. I was practically an expert on the nuances of the electrical system in a Prius by this point. He took the car and checked the battery. It was fine. All my research was wrong, which makes sense, since I’d garnered my knowledge over the course of a couple of hours online, and he had forty years of experience working on cars to base his opinion around.
We follow the same pattern with so many things these days. Medical symptoms. Parenting approaches. Life hacks. It seems there’s always someone online ready and waiting to tell you the answers to all your questions, especially if you’re willing to subscribe to his YouTube channel. And I don’t mean to disparage these resources. They can be invaluable in the right situations, but a five minute YouTube instructional video simply can’t replace a medical degree or a mechanic’s apprenticeship.
So the next question I have is, “Do we do the same thing with our Gospel dilemmas?” In the episode from the Bible, the Ethiopian read something he didn’t understand. He recognized it was beyond his ability to parse out on his own, and that he needed someone to help him make the connections. What would it have been like if, instead of turning to Philip, he had Google or Reddit available as a resource at the time?
To fully understand the implications of that question, it’s helpful to know how Google and other information resources online function. And this is coming from a trained information professional. I’m not just presenting you with stuff I searched out online as I prepared for this talk. Google has a bunch of automated computer programs that go out searching freely available information online. They’re called spiders, and they crawl the web looking for all the latest web pages. When they find a page, they make a copy of that page and store it on Google’s massive servers scattered across the world. 15 of them at last count. Each server storage facility is anywhere from 200,000 square feet to around 1,000,000 square feet in size, every foot packed with servers.
What sets a good search engine apart from a bad one comes down to one thing: algorithms. When you type in a phrase into the search box, Google runs that search on all its millions of servers, looking for where that phrase has appeared on other websites. Just dumping that results list in front of you wouldn’t be very useful, however. Instead, Google runs the results through a series of algorithms to decide what you’re actually looking for, and then it returns what it believes you really want, in ranked order, with the most likely result at the top.
How does it determine what information is worthwhile and what isn’t? Typically it comes down to the principle of popularity. The more popular a web page is–the more people link to it and visit it regularly–the more likely that page is something useful. Other elements come into play as well (how often the search term appears on the page and where), but at the core of the matter, a Google search results list is a popularity contest.
Of course, knowing what the general population finds useful is only half the story, really. To return even more “accurate” results, Google tries to know as much as much as possible about the person doing the search, not just what’s being searched. What do they like to search for usually? What results do they click on? What political beliefs do they have? Where do they live? Do they have children? Do they like to travel? It uses as much of this information as it can get, and it feeds it all into that same algorithm. So you might think that if two people searched the same phrase that Google would return an identical list of results, you’d be wrong. If Google knows its me, its results will be tailored to me. If I do a search anonymously in Maine and another person does the same search anonymously in California, the results still might be different, because Google knows I’m in Maine and the other person’s in California.
Why does this matter? It matters because people don’t actually look through much of a Google results page. They look at the top three hits, and if what they’re looking for isn’t there, they try a new search. This is further complicated by the fact that Google sells ad space to companies, so often those top few hits has a couple of ads thrown in as well. So your search for medical symptoms ends up connecting you with drug companies that treat those symptoms.
But back to our friend, the confused Ethiopian. If he were to do his search today on Google, passing up Philip’s offer to help him understand, he would instead be connected to the most popular pages on the religious topic he’s focused on. If he were to search out a topic focused on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there’s a fair chance the most popular pages are far from the most uplifting ones. This matters in so many ways, because we as a society are training ourselves to turn to the internet for answers. We need to be able to tell the source of the results lists so we can discern between truth and error. Google won’t do that for us. For that, we have the Spirit. This isn’t to say that we can’t or shouldn’t use the resources available to us when we’re trying to find answers to questions that we have, but rather that we should be cautious and cognizant of the ways those resources might try to influence us. Don’t forget that there’s far less difference between Google and a used car salesman than Google would have us believe. We wouldn’t go to a used car salesman to ask what sort of car we should buy, and if we did, we’d be sure to take what he said with a whole box of salt.
So what’s the best way for us to come to understand the Gospel? For me, I learned over time, through the example of my family and friends. The biggest key has always been prayer, the scriptures, and the words of modern day prophets. My testimony and understanding of the Gospel has increased as I’ve prayed about its truthfulness and applied its teachings in my daily life. In my experience, the Gospel is not difficult. There are no trick questions. God isn’t trying to trip us up with confusing commandments.
Yet sometimes I encounter people within the church who espouse a different approach. They’ll delve into the nooks and crannies of speeches and papers written by past church leaders. I can understand the appeal, feeling like there’s some hidden truth waiting for those members who are diligent enough to go looking for it. And indeed, Paul speaks in 1st Corinthians about the need to first be fed with the equivalent of doctrinal milk before you’re ready to graduate to meat. In General Conference, Elder Quentin L. Cook addressed this train of thought, referring to it as a modern day equivalent of “looking beyond the mark.” In the Book of Mormon, Jacob speaks of the stiffneckedness of the people. “they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall.”
Elder Cook states, “While there are many examples of looking beyond the mark,25 a significant one in our day is extremism. Gospel extremism is when one elevates any gospel principle above other equally important principles and takes a position that is beyond or contrary to the teachings of Church leaders. One example is when one advocates for additions, changes, or primary emphasis to one part of the Word of Wisdom. Another is expensive preparation for end-of-days scenarios. In both examples, others are encouraged to accept private interpretations. “If we turn a health law or any other principle into a form of religious fanaticism, we are looking beyond the mark.”26
Speaking of important doctrine, the Lord has declared, “Whosoever declareth more or less than this, the same is not of me.”27 When we elevate any principle in a way that lessens our commitment to other equally important principles or take a position contrary to or which exceeds teachings of Church leaders, we are looking beyond the mark.”
There’s a reason the same principles are stressed time and time again by the speakers in General Conference. It’s because while they might seem easy to learn, they’re obviously incredibly hard to understand to the point that we actually follow them fully in our lives. I don’t believe God is squirreling away nuggets of truth, hiding them for those few members willing to go on a DaVinci Code level quest to find the Real Answers. When we are judged, it will not be by whether we knew where Adam-ondi-Ahman was or where exactly the Nephites lived. It will be on our understanding and application of gospel principles. Faith. Repentance. Charity.
When Denisa and I decided to have children, we quickly realized we had no clue what we were doing. Yes, each of us had somehow successfully been raised to adulthood, but neither of us really had any idea how it had happened, especially in those first few years. There’s a limit to a good memory, after all. To try and get a handle on how we should approach this new task, we turned to our friends and family. Not just anyone, however. We took a step back and thought about those couples we knew who had children we admired. We wanted to have children that would be like those examples, and so we asked those couples for tips and guidance on how to raise good kids. Their advice has worked well for us over the years.
We can follow that same pattern in the Gospel. When you face a trial or trouble that you haven’t handled before, look for people who might have faced it already and came through it well. I know there’s a strong vein of good old fashioned New England independence running through many of you, but this isn’t something you need to get through on your own. Just as you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t, at least) turn to Google to to diagnose a medical problem, you don’t need to use a search engine to get answers to spiritual dilemmas. Find those people you respect and admire and relate to, and talk to them. Ask for advice. That advice can’t replace the promptings of the Spirit, but it can often guide us to answers we wouldn’t have found on our own. God works through people, and each of us often needs a Philip to enlighten our understanding.
Perhaps one of the best parts of this approach? It strengthens everyone involved. I know I learn more when I teach someone else than when I taught myself or learned something the first time. You don’t need to feel like you’re bothering someone. How many people could have saved themselves hours or years of struggle if they just would have asked for help in the first place? I’m so grateful Denisa and I asked for advice when we began to be parents, just as I’m grateful we asked for help when we bought a house, bought a car, picked a career, and did so many other challenging things. If I was reliant on just learning by the mistakes I personally made, I would be lightyears behind where I am now. It’s so much easier and less messy to let yourself take the short cut and learn from others.
Proverbs 3:5 aTrust in the Lord with all thine bheart; and lean not unto thine cown dunderstanding.”
2 Nephi 32:3 aAngels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you,bfeast upon the cwords of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will dtell you all things what ye should do.
4 Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye aask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark.
I bear my testimony that as we ask our Heavenly Father for help and understanding, we shall receive it. Sometimes it will be through the Spirit and revelation. Sometimes it will come to us through the conversations and love of others. But we don’t have to do it alone. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
August 23, 2019
Space Exploration and the Value of a Good Teacher
We just finished watching From the Earth to the Moon, the mini-series devoted to the US space program in the 1960s. It traces the entirety of the effort to get people to the moon. Produced by Tom Hanks, with many known actors in the roles, it’s a great production, and one I highly recommend. Great stuff.
Two things stood out to me during this rewatch. The first is how clear it was that the only thing that motivated the politicians to make this huge push to get to the moon was the competition with Russia. That’s obviously not the reason for everyone, but it’s how so much money was magically found in the budget to support the endeavor. That’s easy to see, since it’s now fifty years later, and we’ve never been back. Yes, there’s talk of sending people to Mars now, and we have the international space station, but that huge laser focus on getting people to the moon is gone.
Some of that might be because since we’ve already been there, there doesn’t seem to be much reason to go back. Some of it is because the space station is so successful. What can be done on the moon that can’t be done on the space station? Some of it is because our government has gotten out of the business of supporting space exploration, for the most part. Leaving it up to independent companies to foot the bill. It’s debatable what role government should play, but I’ll leave that argument for now. I had just often thought of the space program as one example of a time when we all worked together to get something great accomplished, and so I was a bit disappointed as I realized the motivations to do that great thing varied widely. “Beating the Russians” seems like one of the worst justifications for spending millions and millions of dollars. Though if we could somehow recreate that motivation for the right things . . .
The other takeaway was focused on the tremendous Episode Ten of the show. They’d already depicted the moon landing, and so you’d figure the best episodes were behind the series. But this one shows how they taught the astronauts to be knowledgeable field geologists. It’s one of my favorite in the series. They contrast the initial approach (sitting them down in a lecture room while an expert droned on about rocks) with the final approach (taking them out into the field, led by a professor passionate about the subject and teaching.)
It’s not always that cut and dried, but it made me remember the great teachers I had. The ones who could make you love a subject, even if you knew nothing about it at first. One of the main reasons I added linguistics as a second major was because of Professor Oaks at BYU. He did such an incredible job with Intro to Linguistics, that I just had to learn more. He made me realize how much I loved the subject. Sure, some of that’s probably because I was already naturally inclined to like it. Not everyone who took the class loved it. But still, in the hands of the right teacher, a subject can really come alive.
I almost think that episode should be required viewing in our teaching classes. It’s great as a standalone piece. You don’t need to know anything else about the space program. It looks like it’s freely available online. Give it a watch sometime, and check out the whole series when you can!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 22, 2019
A Great Way to Spend $100
One hundred dollars can do a lot of different things for you. It can buy you a really nice meal or an even greater amount of groceries. It can take you to the movies multiple times. It can buy a couple of video games. It can buy around 4 or 5 hardcover books, or more paperback. It can set you up with enough chocolate pudding mixes to last at least a few months, depending on how fast you go through chocolate pudding mixes.
I’ve spent $100 many different ways over the years. But perhaps one of my personal favorite ways that I spent $100 in the last couple of years was when I purchased this keyless door bolt system.
[image error]
It’s not the most expensive ones out there. There’s no camera on it. No wifi connection. No way to unlock it remotely. It’s just a touch pad. You type in the right code, and the door unlocks. Voila!
Up until that $100 was spent, there were multiple instances of family members getting locked out of the house. Who can forget the time I did it to myself at 6:30 and tried to get Denisa’s attention by throwing rocks at our bedroom window? (Pro-tip: it doesn’t work as well in real life as it does in the movies.) Denisa locked MC in the house once, while she was locked out of the house. That was a bad morning.
Now that we have the keyless lock, however, all of that is a thing of the past.
Unless, of course, someone locks the door knob. There’s this little flimsy bedroom door lock on the handle, see. We never touch it, so we don’t have to worry about it. Except this morning when Tomas was coming back from cross country practice to an empty locked house, he discovered someone had locked that lock.
Let’s just say this morning Tomas is grateful for cell phones. For the fact that I work only five minutes from my house. For me deciding to stay at work instead of heading to the beach with Denisa and the girls. Because keyless door locks don’t work if you lock something else.
But if you’re looking for a way to spend $100, might I recommend the peace of mind of never locking yourself out of your house again? The thing is easy to install (I did it myself in a few minutes) and works like a charm.
Just make sure not to lock any other locks on the same door . . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 21, 2019
Writing Update: August 2019
It’s been a while since I checked in to update you all about my various writing endeavors. People often ask if I’m still writing, and the answer is always yes. I’ve got many different projects in the fire in one way or another. Here’s a breakdown of everything I’ve written or am working on writing:
Book One: Into the Elevator. Some fun stuff in this adventure about a girl transported to a fantasy realm, but it’s still a first book. I haven’t even reread it in years. Might be amusing to do so at some point, but . . . not likely there’s much here worth salvaging.Book Two: Blood Countess. My one and only experiment writing a book with a partner. It was intended to bounce back and forth between medieval and present day Slovakia, with real-life evil noble Countess Bathory as the link between them. I wrote my half. The other half never really came together. Interestingly, one of the villains was a Vodnik in this one. No chance this ever gets submitted anywhere.Book Three: Weaver of Dreams. The first book I ever submitted anywhere. A parallel world fantasy I still like the idea of, where our world is mirrored in a world of dreams. Good enough to catch the interest of my agent, though not good enough to convince him to represent me. Maybe I’ll revisit some ideas at some point. Shelved for now.Book Four: Buttersby. Published! I actually wrote what’s essentially a trilogy for this one, though only the first book was published as Cavern of Babel. Still the world’s only alpaca fantasy, I believe. Available as an eBook over at Amazon, or you can get it by being a Patron for even one month over at my Patreon page.Book Five: Adventures of Barboy. A comic fantasy about a plucky young man who has to save his city from a horde of zombies. Rewritten later (see Book Eight). Shelved.Book Six: Vodnik. Published! Print copy available here. YA contemporary fantasy about a boy who moves to Slovakia and discovers he can see and interact with creatures from Slovak folklore. Some of them want to kill him . . . Would still love to write a sequel someday, but that day is unlikely to ever overlap with our current timeline.Book Seven: Ichabod. An adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, jammed together with Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. The whole thing is available for my Patrons, but that’s as close to real publication as this is likely to get.Book Eight: Pawn of the Dead. A rewrite of Book Five, but set as a contemporary fantasy. Interestingly, it takes place at my own high school. A fun book, but I’m not sure it will ever do anything. Maybe I should reread it sometime to be sure. It’s currently being posted in chapter increments for my Patrons.Book Nine: Tarnhelm. A YA teen noir fantasy. Revised and submitted to editors. It caught some attention at the time, but never enough to seal the deal. These days after the #metoo movement, the protagonist has some issues that might make publication even more problematic. It would need some serious revision to make it work, I worry. Shelved for now.Book Ten: Get Cupid. I worked on this one a long time, and in the end, it went nowhere. YA contemporary fantasy about a group of teens who set out to rob a Vegas casino. Harry Potter meets Oceans Eleven. Rewritten in Book Twelve.Book Eleven: The Memory Thief. Published! “Something Wicked This Way Comes” meets Pixar’s “Inside Out.” Available as an eBook or in Print. Buy it today!Book Twelve: Our Lady of Questionable Morals. I loved the concept of Get Cupid, and I just couldn’t let it go, so I gave it another shot, moving it from Vegas to a private school and increasing the con man aspects. Revised and submitted to editors. Got some attention, but never enough. Shelved for now, though I wish it might still see print one day.Book Thirteen: The Book Binder’s Curse. I wrote this one in a month for NaNoWriMo. An adaptation of Peter Pan that I had a lot of fun with, but which my agents . . . didn’t appreciate.
August 20, 2019
Bringing Board Games to the Library
When I was down at ALA this summer, I attended a session focused on board gaming and libraries. As an academic librarian, I’ve often looked with envy at the fun activities public libraries get to run from time to time. Movie nights. Festivals. Board games. So much of what I do is focused purely on the academic side of reading. Research. Information evaluation, etc. We do a few things more slanted toward fun, but I’d never really considered board games as a good fit for the library.
But while I was at that session, I suddenly found myself questioning that assumption. Why wouldn’t board games fit with the rest of my offerings? We have space where people could play games. College students love games. We do activities from time to time focused on stress relief. What was stopping me? What’s the point in being the director of a library if you can’t bring board games into the fold?
While that thought was still fresh in my head, I went with a friend to a board game cafe. (Thirsty Dice in Philadelphia.) It’s such a great set up. You’ve got all these games waiting to be played, arranged by type of game, number of players, difficulty, length of time to play it, etc. There are “board game baristas” waiting to give game recommendations and teach people how to play if they’re not sure. You can go in and spend hours playing old favorites or learning new ones.
Wouldn’t it be great to bring that to my institution?
I’ve decided to go ahead and give it a shot. There are a couple of issues that I’m not 100% sure won’t cause problems, of course. My plan is to have the games stay in the library (non-circulating), but I’m also planning to just have them out in the general area where people can see them and use them as they wish. I debated putting them back behind the circulation desk, but in the end I thought that would make it less likely that the games get used. Of course, with them out in the open, we run the risk of the games being “permanently borrowed” or of pieces wandering off. I want to believe that won’t be a huge issue, however. It’s been my experience that board gamers want to play games. If they have a game they love, they want to own it. If they want to own it, they want a fresh, pristine game to own, and not one that’s been communally used.
In the end, I decided I’d just try it out and see how it went. I have some games I’m donating to the collection to start things off, and I might buy a few more core games to get the ball rolling. From there . . . we’ll see. See if the games get used. See if the pieces go missing. See what the response is from students. At the very least, it’ll be a fun experiment. In an ideal world, I’ll start to offer some programming around the games. Have game nights. Work with some student clubs to run activities. Foster more gaming events. If things go well, it could be a really fun addition to our offerings.
Wish me luck!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 19, 2019
Television Review: When They See Us
I heard good things about When They See Us as soon as it was released on Netflix. A dramatized retelling of the Central Park Five rape case in the 80s that has since gone on to garner 12 Emmy nominations. It went straight to the top of my “Watch Next” list, and I finished the mini-series last week.
As expected, it’s an absolutely brutal experience. If you’re not aware of what went on in the case, it was focused around the rape of a jogger in New York City. The night she was raped, a large group of boys had been in the area, assaulting several other people. Police rounded up who they could, and five of those boys (four 15 year olds and a 16 year old) eventually ended up being accused and convicted of the rape, primarily based on them admitting to the act on camera in taped confessions. Years later, another man came forward and confessed to the crime. He was a serial rapist who’d been active in NYC at that time, and DNA evidence proved he committed the crime. The 5 boys were exonerated, though some still believe they were part of the assault of the woman.
So this is not exactly material that’s going to leave you feeling uplifted and happy. But I think it’s important to watch. It reminded me in many ways of The Wire. (As a heads up, it’s TV-MA, largely for language.) But the problem with a work like this is that it’s so hard to use it as fodder to get any real change implemented, and that’s even more depressing.
Any time you’re dealing with “facts,” people want to come out and dispute the facts. Ave DuVernay’s depiction of this historical event leaves little in the way of justification for the police. Taken at face value, it’s clear these 5 boys were wrongly accused, and that what happened to them was a travesty of justice. The people involved in those false convictions are monstrous for what they did to those boys. But of course, the people involved then say the depiction wasn’t accurate, and that key pieces of evidence were left out of the mini-series to make it all seem more cut and dried. It reminds me of the Making a Murder show that came out a while ago.
I was not present at the scene of the crime. I can’t say definitively what happened and what didn’t happen, and at this point in time, there’s nothing that can really be done to solve the past in this instance. NYC paid over $40 million to settle a case against it by the 5, though naturally some say that shouldn’t have happened. That they were guilty and remain guilty.
But to me, the longer this remains focused on finding out “exactly what happened” in this particular case, the bigger chance there is that things similar to what is depicted in the mini-series continue to happen. Do police beat false confessions out of suspects? I cannot imagine that they don’t. This isn’t because I don’t trust police officers. It’s because I recognize that any system as large as the American criminal justice system is inevitably going to have problems. Just as I know and respect many doctors, I still recognize the fact that doctors will make mistakes. They will misdiagnose. Wrong limbs will be amputated. Massive blunders happen. Our goal should always be 100% accuracy, but anyone who thinks we’re already there in any area is delusional.
And yet so often the approach of the law in America seems to be “police don’t make mistakes and are never crooked.” If you speak out against any instances, some will accuse you of slander or bias. But for our justice system to improve, it can’t be an “all or nothing” defense of it. Just because we acknowledge there are serious flaws in some areas doesn’t mean we’re accusing the whole thing of being rotten.
When I watched this mini-series, I got angry. Angry that things like this can happen in our country. Angry that people can have their lives ruined so that other people can slap a proverbial “problem solved” sticker on an issue or a case. I want that to stop. I want a justice system that’s open and accountable. I’m very glad police have taken to wearing cameras on them at all times, though it’s disappointing that’s what it’s taken to get some of these travesties brought to light.
I get it. I understand life is complex, and the cut and dried Hollywood solutions on screen are rarely that way in real life. But at the same time, I’m growing very tired of the hackneyed tendency of some (mainly on the right) to pat other people on the head and claim that they’re all misguided children. And even as I write this, I know the reaction some will have to it. But I challenge anyone to try to argue that events like those depicted in this series don’t happen. If we can at least agree that they do, and that they shouldn’t, perhaps we could start to come up with ways to ensure less of them do in the future.
In any case, this is something I think should be watched. Yes, it’s extremely uncomfortable. And it’s not perfect. There are a few pacing issues in spots, but I ended up giving it a 9.5/10. Highly recommended. Now I want to search out the Ken Burns documentary that was made on the same topic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 16, 2019
Invisible Weights
I imagine a fair number of you have been skiing. If you have, then you can surely relate to the feeling of taking off a pair of ski boots after you’ve had them on for a whole day. They’re clunky and very restrictive, and when you take them off, it’s amazing how much lighter your feet and legs feel. Like they’ve suddenly been freed from something you didn’t realize was as bad as it was.
Now imagine that you’ve had ski boots on for months. Years even. Imagine what it would feel like to take them off, even for a little bit.
I think there are weights we all carry, some voluntary and some involuntary. We carry them all around for long enough that we sometimes forget they’re even there. We wonder why we’re so tired all the time, or why just getting through the day can be exhausting. And it’s only when we take a moment now and then to look at all the things we’re carrying around that we notice just how much we’re shouldering.
Case in point. As a member of the Maine Library Association presidency for the past six years, it was never a “burden” that I felt was overwhelming. It was work I enjoyed doing, and it needed doing. But when I stepped out of that role a few months ago, there was definitely a feeling of taking off a load I’d been carrying around for so long I’d forgotten how heavy it had become. You take that responsibility and tuck it away in a corner of your mind, reserving some mental space for it.
Second example: with Tomas and DC gone to Fiddle Camp this past week, it’s been amazing to me to see how much extra time it feels like I have. Please note: this is not me complaining about having kids at all. I love them all dearly and am very happy to be their father. But it is another responsibility that I take care of each day. I’ll come home from work and check with them to see how they’re doing. I’ll keep track of the things they need to do, or the things they’d like me to do. You wouldn’t think it takes that much mental space to keep track of it all for kids who are old enough to be self-directing (for the most part), but this week, I realized I’d been selling the job short. It still takes time and emotional energy.
The same logically holds true for all the relationships we have in life. Spouse. Parent. Child. Friend. Co-worker. Anything we need to put effort into to maintain. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. (In my experience, anything worth real value takes effort.) But in some situations, it can certainly be a problem. Because these burdens are always there, it can be hard to tell if you’re in a relationship that’s taking too much of your time and attention. As hard as it is to imagine forgetting to take off your ski boots when you’re done skiing, I suppose it’s theoretically possible.
So what to do with this new observation? In most cases, I imagine the answer is “not much.” Like I said, this is a “burden” I want. One that’s rewarding and worth the effort. But perhaps it would be useful now and then to try and identify all the burdens we’re carrying, particularly the ones we might not realize are even there. Because if we could identify just a couple of those that aren’t necessary anymore, that can free up some much needed mental space for all the other things we’re doing.
It’s something to think about . . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 15, 2019
The Accidental Sports Parent
It never crossed my mind that one day I might end up the parent of a high school athlete. I was about as far from an athlete in high school as I am today, and that’s saying something. Back in Council Rock, the school was enormous. My graduating class had 850 students in it. With a school that size, I suppose it’s fairly natural that there will be distinct cliques within it. Groups of students who identify primarily by their main interests. There were very fully developed, robust programs in everything from band to chorus to drama to a whole slew of sports, and then there were the typical array of classes according to difficulty level.
I was in all the most difficult classes. That was my first priority. Second was band. Almost all of my friends were in band or orchestra, though I was tangentially involved in drama. I was in a play, and I had a number of friends in drama, but it wasn’t what I identified most with. There were smaller connections as well (the school paper, for example), and I had a few friends outside those spheres, but that was almost always because they were in the other honors classes with me. I had one very close friend on cross country, but I never paid any attention to what he did when he was competing. It simply didn’t interest me at all, so it remained a mystery.
Denisa and I never enrolled the kids in any sports programs. No youth football. No little league. No soccer. They’re all active skiers, but they never expressed much of an interest in trying for the ski teams. They’ve gotten into music, and they’ve done some summer activities like tennis and rock climbing, but they’ve generally been focused elsewhere. (DC and MC both expressed fleeting interest in dance. That didn’t happen for a litany of reasons.)
His freshman year, Tomas was very active in school activities. Math club, the Franklin County Fiddlers, and Robotics dominated his afternoons. That seemed like more than enough to keep him occupied. But what I didn’t realize was that in a school with just around 150 in a graduating class, there can be a whole lot more bleed through between cliques than there seemed to be in my school. A ton of kids who are in Fiddlers are also on Cross Country, for example, including many of his close friends.
So when he expressed interest in joining the team, Denisa and I were perhaps a bit surprised, but definitely encouraging. What was one more after school activity, more or less? What I failed to realize was just how all encompassing a sport can be. Denisa went to the first big meeting, and . . . wow. Practice after school every day. Meets most weekends. Team dinners the night before meets. Fundraisers. Practices in the summer. For the first two and a half months of the year, he’s going to be living the Cross Country life.
And I still don’t know where I fit into all of that as a parent. Do I go to the team dinners? Do I go to all the different meets? What do I do there? Can you even see anything at a cross country event? Maybe I should have been paying better attention back in high school. Do I go to away meets? Home meets? I just don’t know where I fit into all of this. On the one hand, I want to be supportive. On the other, I recognize and remember that not all parents are involved to the same extent. My parents were never really “band parents” the way some of my friends’ parents were, and I was fine with that. They came to a number of events, but by no means all of the many marching band competitions.
This isn’t a high level of stress for me or anything. I know it’ll all iron itself out, and Tomas isn’t worried about it either. But it’s still interesting to find myself in a wholly new situation that kind of sprang out at me out of the blue. Certainly much more respect for all the school athletes and their dedication to their sport. I had no idea.
Go Cougars! (Lucky for me the high school and BYU share the same mascot, so at least that all lines up nicely.)
August 14, 2019
Adulting 301: Safety Deposit Boxes
Well, it’s official. I managed to make it 40 years without opening a safety deposit box, but those days are now behind me. Today Denisa and I traipsed into town to the bank to make it official. We now have a spot to put all our gems, gold, and illegal substances. If we had any of those things. Sadly, our lives are much less interesting than that. We just wanted to get the box to have a secure place to store our important documents.
See? How boring and adultish have I become?
I mean, I really wanted to have something cooler to put in that box. At least a few passports from other countries, as well as stacks of bills from a scattering of different currencies. I didn’t even have any mysterious keys to stick in that could lead people on an exciting adventure. No, instead I had a living will. Movies and television has taught me so much more is possible from a safety deposit box, but instead I put in What to Do If I Am Comatose and Not Likely to Recover.
Funnily enough, Denisa and I prepared those documents 4 years ago. Living wills, regular wills, powers of attorney. All that flashy stuff that makes any sane person’s eyes want to glaze over. We got them all set and done, and the last thing we needed to do was put them someplace secure, in case our house burned down or something.
Instead, we did the standard immature thing: stick them in a drawer and forget about them. (Hey, it’s an approach that’s never really failed me yet, so . . . )
For the record, getting a safety deposit box is more complicated than I thought it would be. I pictured us walking in, signing a piece of paper, stuffing the documents in, and being on our way. In reality, it took about twenty minutes. Our cost around $50/year for a small box just big enough to fit a rolled up stack of Very Important Documents. But at least that cost includes a cool set of keys that make it so you can’t open the box without having two keys present. Kind of like entering nuclear launch codes, but without the messy aftermath.
Why did we do all this? Because we have studied, and in studying, we have learned that man is mortal.* Stuff happens. And as much as it would be nice to never have to talk or think about that stuff, it’s still not a bad idea to prepare for the bad stuff, just in case. If Denisa and I both died, what should happen to our kids? If we’re brain dead, what do we want to happen to our bodies? Who gets to inherit the gazillion dollars I have stashed away in gold bullion from that adventure with the dragon and the dwarves from back in my early days?**
I dislike even thinking those thoughts, let alone writing them. They make me want to glance over my shoulder to see if a train’s about to barrel through my room. But as attractive as sticking my head in the sand seems . . .
We still signed the documents, and we still (finally) put them in a safety deposit box. So now I can legally forget about them and not feel guilty when I remember they’re not in a safe spot. I’ve got the cool double keys (and the yearly fee) to remind me I’m done with that for now.
In the meantime, if any of you are looking for a place to hide a very small piece of stolen artwork, have I got the spot for you . . .
*We also learned never to get involved in a land war in Asia.
**Bilbo was actually 50 when he first set off to the Lonely Mountain, so I’ve got almost a decade before I really need to start worrying about being behind on that plan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 13, 2019
Inflection Points
This morning at breakfast, I was thinking about inflection points: points in my life where single events ended up having very big impacts on my life. Where things could have (or did) changed drastically based on a decision or chance meeting. A couple of examples will help show the principle.
The summer before I entered Eighth Grade, my family moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. It wasn’t a planned move. My mom and stepfather dropped me and my siblings off at the airport to go be with my father in Utah for a month, as we did each summer. After dropping us off in Newark, they went for a drive, with no place in particular in mind. They just wanted to go someplace interesting. They ended up in Bucks County, about an hour and a half away from Newark. They drove by a road with an “open house” sign on it. Wanting a break, they decided to get out and look at the house. They liked the house so much, they put in a low ball offer on it. An offer that was accepted right off.
When I came back from Utah, it was to a new house in a new state. Everything that happened to me since then has been different than what would have happened to me if they hadn’t seen that house and made that offer. I have no idea what that alternate reality would be like. Would I have ended up hooking back into this course of events after a while? I’d always wanted to go to BYU, so it’s possible I would have ended up in the same dorm room, but even if that had happened, would I have been the same person, having had a whole different set of friends and experiences leading up to that?
Who knows.
Another inflection point: there was a time about 14 years ago where it looked quite likely that Denisa and I would be moving to Slovakia to oversee the renovation of a castle. Uhrovec Kaštiel, to be specific. It was going to be renovated into a business center and library over the course of several years. (Denisa and I actually looked at about 15 castles that trip, evaluating them for suitability and cost. One of them (that I know of) has since been restored:
[image error]This is what Oponice Kaštiel looked like back when we were on our expedition
And this is pretty much the same shot now.I have no idea what would have waited for us down that path. It never materialized, mainly because the bottom fell out of the economy a few years later, and that was that. But talk about an inflection point.
Sometimes, however, I think there are things that look like inflection points, but really are just the culmination of a series of events. They’re more the straw that broke the camel’s back than a real moment of pivotal change (or lack of change). To use a scriptural example, people might try to point to David deciding to sleep with Bathsheba as an inflection point, but I’d argue that was the culmination of a series of events that preceded it. It wasn’t as if David went from a solid-as-a-rock follower of God straight to adulterer and murderer. There were a series of steps in between, and if he hadn’t seen Bathsheba bathing naked one evening, it was likely he would have seen or done something else that caused his downfall, because his life was then at a point where a downfall was quite likely.
It makes me think of back pain, actually. When you “throw your back out,” it’s easy to point to the thing you were doing when it all went wrong. I remember I was reaching into the backseat of my car to get something once, and my back suddenly hurt worse than ever. It took a week for me to feel mostly better. But when I talked to a physical therapist about it, he said it wasn’t due to reaching into the back seat. It was due to me overusing the back muscles before then. The final action was just the last straw, not the ultimate cause. If it hadn’t happened reaching into the back seat, it would have happened soon after with another random “cause.”
Though I suppose things like that could still be inflection points, if only for the various possibilities suddenly narrowing down to one particular instance in that moment. For David, his downfall went from “could be any number of things” to “Bathsheba” when he saw her from his rooftop. Maybe we could call that the Schrodinger’s Cat inflection point variety . . .
Anyway, that’s my deep thought for the day. Do any of you have any examples of this in your life that you’ve seen? I find events like this fascinating. Please share.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
