Advise is Precious

I really wish I had a talent to give good advise all the time. It's hard to be comforting and understanding all the time. I admire psychologists who can listen and give humbly advise constantly.

My friend Brooke had her show this weekend and she was not happy about how it turned out, so much that she was beating herself up. I just wish I would have been able to give her better advise and make her feel better about herself and her show. It really was a funny show, yes some of the comedians were not team players, but that wasn't her fault. They are professionals and they should act like it.

My positive for this blog entry is the admiration I have for people who are give unconditional advise to folks in need. The people that people go to when they need to talk and know they will feel better about themselves afterwards. I wish I had that ability and I'm grateful for those kind of people that exist. Maybe one day I will have all the correct answers, I will strive to be that attentive and understanding.

Something New to Appreciate Planet Earth For

I learned something new today. There is a good deal of evidence that 650 million years ago this planet underwent the worst ice age it has ever seen. An ice age that covered the entire planet, from pole to pole in a solid sheet of ice up to 1,000 feet thick.

We enter an ice age roughly every 100,000 years. Generally they follow the same story. The earth's orbit slowly takes it further and further away from the sun, gradually dropping temperatures globally. The polar ice caps begin to spread toward the equator, though they never get there. They always stop quite a distance away as the planet slowly returns to its position nearer to the sun. But this ice age was different. Not only was the planet further from the sun, it also, through various reasons that would take too long to explain here, was losing vast quantities of CO2 out of the atmosphere, locking it in limestone deposits beneath the ocean. CO2, a greenhouse gas, normally helps the atmosphere warm and retain heat. So much was being stripped from the atmosphere temperatures plummeted. The ice spread from the poles much faster than it ever had before, or has since.

And here's the wild part. Snow covered glacial ice is the best reflector of the suns rays on the planet, reflecting nearly all of the sun's energy back into space. Ocean water is the poorest reflector, absorbing far more heat than it reflects back. So as the glaciers spread across the planet, glacial ice replacing ocean water, the planet reflected more and more heat back into space. Eventually it reached a critical mass, creating a runaway, self-perpetuating cooling event. The less liquid water there was the less heat the planet retained cooling the planet further, creating more ice, which replaced even more of the liquid water. In no time (cosmically speaking) earth was completely locked in ice, a giant snowball hurtling around a sun that was powerless to help it.

The planet stayed like that for millions of years. Eventually volcanic activity below earth's surface, which ebbs and flows entered a very active period. Over a span of about a million years volcanoes, which emit large quantities of CO2, gave off enough of the greenhouse gas to get the planet warming again. And as more ice melted and more water was released the planet retained more heat and thawed ever faster. Eventually the ice age to end all ice ages was over.

Now here's the really cool part. Before this global freeze life had been evolving on the planet for nearly three billion years. And in that time it hadn't gotten beyond single-celled organisms. These organisms were trapped below (and in) the ice. They either had to adapt or die. Those that did survive were truly the heartiest of the hearty. The cream of the genetic coffee. When the ice finally melted the earth saw the biggest boom in evolution that had ever occurred. It helped that the chemistry involved in a global, prolonged freeze / thaw created more oxygen than had ever existed in the atmosphere before (oxygen levels in the air went from 1% to %20). The hearty survivors of the global ice holocaust, in the newly-created, oxygen rich world went wild. For the first time in three billion years multi-cellular creatures appeared. And in what is called the Cambrian Explosion, multi-cellular life...exploded. After three billion years of stagnancy, huge numbers of complex life forms begin appearing in the fossil record over a period of only 80 million years.

The global freeze had the potential to wipe out all life, such as it was, on earth. Instead it ended up kick-starting evolution, creating a massive diversity of life forms that eventually led to us. It's very possible that had this massive ice age never occurred earth would still be a planet dominated by single cell "slime" life. So give thanks to the universe's unforgiving nature. Had it been kinder to our planet we'd likely not be here.

Designing a Board Game

It's an odd hobby, I know, but it's one I can't seem to shake. I really, REALLY want to gestate and finish a fun, playable, salable game. I've got a few ideas, one of which I wrote about in a previous entry (it involved Zombies.) But I've yet to finish one completely. Most of them are still in concept stage, in various states of not anywhere near finished. A few days ago I had loose idea for a strategy game and a much more concrete concept for the board it would be played on. I designed the board in Photoshop, broke it into four pieces, printed those as large as possible on four sheets of paper and the taped them together into a near full size game board.

At which point I realized that the intended game was crap.

But that's the challenge. Broad concepting is easy. Narrowing that down to compelling, playable mechanics is entirely different.

I don't know what the attraction is. I guess, for me, the game of designing a game, and the mental gymnastics that go with it is nearly as much fun as the games themselves. Plus I think I just want to prove to myself that I can do it.

No luck so far, but I'm unfazed.

Pain Relievers

Any medication that takes away pain for even a short amount of time is a blessing. I had the worse stomachs cramps last night, so bad that I was up at 5am, 7am, 9am, and then finally woke up at 12pm. I took Pepto a couple times and the pain would subside enough for me to get a couple hours of sleep here and there. Jason went out and got me Gas-x and since I took two of them my pain hasn't come back. I'm now heading to NYC for a short trip to see Brooke with my Gas-X in hand. I think I'll be alright, thanks for pain relievers.

Can An Infrequent Negative Be Considered a Positive?

I'm not sure the answer. I've been sitting here for about ten minutes or so, pondering an entry topic. All the while a rave party is raging next door. College kids. They're actually a good group of guys. They always stop by ahead of time to make sure we're good with their plans, and they've given us their phone number in case things get too loud. And they do, but not so much that we can't deal with it. And they happen very infrequently, so I thought, "Count your blessings, Jason. Surely it's a positive thing that you only have to put up with the noise occasionally."

But is that positive? I'm not sure. Is it a positive thing that you only painfully bite your lip occasionally? Nobody wants to bite their lip. Even though the pain is fleeting, it is intense for that brief moment, and you'd avoid the experience if you could. So could even one instance of biting you lip be considered positive?

I suppose on the one hand it is. Chance are that eventually you're going to bite your lip. It's inevitable. So, accepting that a life without painfully bitten lips is impossible, the positivity of the situation escalates the less frequently this unfortunate situation occurs. The less often you can manage to experience inevitable pain, the more positive you should feel about it.

It's the same with any uncontrollable, accidental occurrence. Even if you can't predict exactly what the accident or random badness will be, you know that occasional bad luck is inevitable. So experiencing those flashes of nastiness infrequently is positive.

But in the case of loud frat parties I'm not sure the same logic holds. You can control whether things like that happen. If I wanted to be a total $#@%, I could tell my neighbors that I've got no tolerance for blaring music, and if they do it, I'll call the cops. I'm not a total $#@%, so I wouldn't and haven't done that, but I could. The point is, while it's impossible not to occasionally stub your toe, it is possible to live house-party free. And if it's possible for a particular negative situation not to ever occur, then even infrequent occurrences really can't be deemed positive.

If getting punched in the face was something you could safely avoid your entire life, then getting punched in the face even once in a lifetime would be negative. If something never has to happen, and it does, that occurrence will always suck. And once in a lifetime is as infrequent as you can get. But getting punched once is negative. Biting your lip once a year is positive.

It probably has more to do with thresholds. For any given negative situation, or really any situation at all (I like ice cream, but I can only each so much) we each have a particular threshold, beyond which we can no longer tolerate things. As long as we stay under that threshold we consider it a win. So my threshold for lip biting far exceeds my threshold for getting kicked in the huevos. To be precise, my threshold for the latter is zero. My house-party threshold is a bit higher, a limit that is raised even higher by the fact my neighbors are considerate enough to warn us. My threshold for losing feeling in my right leg while driving because my wallet is cutting of circulation exceeds the party limit be a good bit. Lip biting comes in just a hair higher than that. And then, on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum my threshold for the dinner we had tonight (and the three nights previous to this one), pasta with awesome homemade meat and veggie sauce, is nearly infinite.

And some thresholds modify others. I'd easily be able to reset my lip-biting threshold to once a day if I could try my hand at besting my limitless pasta eating threshold on a nightly basis. But that would probably cause me to exceed my threshold for the size of my waistline. So clearly none of this exists in a vacuum.

How Cute!

Baby clothes are so freaking cute. Seeing what outfits the babies come in wearing each day is one of the many highlights. It's amazing the different kind of baby clothes made these days. You can pretty much get any kind of adult clothes in baby sizes. I have even gotten jealous of some of the clothes they have available, such as velcro Chuck All Stars. Cute clothes make the babies look like little people. They are all growing so fast. I would particularly love if I had a girl one day, so I could dress her up in the cutest clothes. Just one of the many things that put a smile on my face everyday.

TED

Tonight's entry is a shorty. If you've never visited ted.com, check it out. TED: Ideas Worth Sharing bills itself as "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world." It's an apt description. There are short talks by luminaries in every field imaginable delivering really fascinating, groundbreaking ideas. Some of the people you'll know. Many you won't. But you'll be hard-pressed not to find mind-expanding ideas with every click.

I'm not going to try and pick out the talks that I think all of you will find interesting. Everybody has their own bag. I guarantee you though that you'll find a lot to fill yours.

The address is simple, www.ted.com. Everything else is pretty elaborate. Do yourself a favor and check it out sometime.

Mod Cloth

Let me preface this by saying that I'm aware I don't have any money, so actually shopping online or otherwise is out of the question, but that does not stop me from browsing occasionally to see what's out there.

My co-worker Jenn just told me about modcloth.com, it's an online women's clothing store that I just got done reviewing. The prices are a little on the high side, but they are no where near Anthropology, my last love (I literally was able to buy one dress from there once when my mom got me a gift certificate and it still only covered a 3/4 of the cost, it's that pricey.) I loved almost everything Mod Cloth had, everything was very vintage looking with a modern flare. The dresses and the coats are to die for and each item is so unique.

Maybe one day someone will get me a gift certificate from there so I can afford to buy one dress. Oh, to dream...

Retirement

One day I'll get to retire. Some days it feels like it can't come soon enough. And it is some time off, probably too far off to think about. But it makes me happy to fantasize about the day when labors cease and Judge Judy becomes a constant companion. Because on that day the world will move with new purpose. Birds will fly higher than they ever have and fish will lie down with sharks. Peace and tranquility will be the order of things as years stretch out in unending bliss. Days will acquire extra hours. Weeks will exist as a continuum. Calenders will become as unnecessary as shoes and electric razors.

Phrases like, "How's things?" and "Keepin' busy?" will no longer be uttered in my presence because the answers will be self evident and unchanging. They'll be "Great!" for the former, and "Yep, gotta go or I'll miss Guiding Light" for the latter. Because how can things be bad when your world is wholly and entirely your own? When you answer only to yourself, your significant other and the Must See TV lineup? When slippers and danish crumbs constitute formal wear and sunlight is something received entirely through double-paned replacement windows, if that's your desire for the day, life has reached its zenith.

C'mon 63 and a half!

Except for that part. I'd prefer to retire at 45. Thankfully, it turns out, beggars can be choosers.*


*No. No they can't. Not unless some well-entrenched publishing house decides to buy the rights to "A Year of Positives", the book. I'm willing to make a deal.

Tree of Lights

I love the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree every year. We always had fake ones growing up, but it always looked so festive and really got me in the mood for the holidays. I couldn't wait to see presents under the tree. Even as an adult just seeing other people's presents under a tree gets me in a joyous mood. I love seeing just a glimpse of trees through people's windows, it can be so beautiful.

I love the tradition of hanging all the ornaments on the tree. I remember doing this with my mom as a kid and just loving unwrapping all the old ornaments and delicately placing them on the tree until the whole thing was covered with colorful memories and lights.

Jason and I agreed that this year will not be a year of big gift buying, but instead I'm hoping to get a real tree for the first time, just a small one. This small tree will give the house a little taste of holiday magic. That's all I'm asking for this year. I'll buy a string of lights and a few cheap ornaments. This and seeing my family for the holidays is all I want for Christmas.

Being Attentive to the Details

Bearing in mind that nothing is ever as simple as it seems can save you a good deal of heartache. What I mean is that behind every act, every process, there are levels of complexity lurking to bite you in the butt if you're not mindful of them. I'll give you a good example.

Last week I discovered a leak in our new back rubber roof. After some rooting around I think I narrowed the source. I believe the leak is happening where one of the handrail posts plunges into the roofing material. Given that I can't pull the railing apart I figured I could simply caulk all around the outside, so that no water would ever be able to get under the post's decorative trim to reach the failure point again.

Maybe, I think, there's a caulk better suited than others to the task. After all there's acrylic, silicon, blends of each and a half dozen or so other varieties. I started doing research after a trip to the hardware store revealed that some caulks specifically mention that they shouldn't be used on rubber while others are silent in both directions. Overall I found one type of caulk recommended for rubber roofing systems. Butyl caulk. And because of its VOC content, Butyl caulk has been banned in Maryland. You can't buy it and you can't have it shipped in.

So what do I do? I'm not sure specifically what can or can't be used other than Butyl. I went today to a roofing supply distributor. They recommended Geocel, a brand name representing many different products, one of which, their 2300 caulk, I bought. Again though it was silent on its safety with rubber roofs.

I did more research. Turns out you cannot use silicon-based caulks on rubber. It will dry and flake of. And...Geocel 2300...no good either, it turns out, from what I can piece together. While the Geocel website is somewhat mute on the point (it doesn't list rubber in the 2300's list of potential materials, but it also doesn't warn you against it) I found another reference elsewhere on EPDM rubber roofing that Aromatic Hydrocarbons can be very damaging. Geocel 2300 contains Aromatic Hydrocarbons. So that's out. Geocel does sell a sealant called 4500 however that specifically mentions rubber roofing applications as safe uses for the product.

So tomorrow I'm heading back to ABC to hopefully swap my 2300 for 4500, if they have it. How did they, the experts, manage to sell me the wrong product for my application? The didn't think deeply enough into the details.

It's negative in one sense, I guess, but you really should approach everything as a potential pitfall. Keeping a keen eye out for the myriad of ways things can go wrong will help you avoid making a lot of costly mistakes. Always know, as deeply as possible, what you're doing before you start. You'll still screw things up sometimes, but generally not as badly as you could have otherwise. So in the end it's really a very positive way to approach life. It's a cliche, but it's true. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

After all, who knew how complicated getting the right caulk for my job was going to be? And if I'd used just any caulk I could have created a really horrible situation.

The devil's in the details, after all.*


*This too is cliched. And it is also true.

Super Mario Adventures

I love all Super Mario Brother video games. It all started with Nintendo's Super Mario I, II, and III when I was growing up. I just loved their fun-simplicity. And all the different worlds that have been created through out the years have all been amazing.

Yesterday I started Wii's Super Mario Galaxy and it's been a blast so far. It's also helps playing on a 63 inch TV screen. I get to fly, scale walls, and travel to unique universes as a try to find find Peach (the princess). It's a great new way for me to escape reality.