Better and Better

I had a pocket calculator when I was in grade school and it was amazing. The power of addition, subtraction and even multiplication all at my finger tips. Homework was powerless against me. My fifth grade teacher, Mr.Ferrell, would scoff at our solar powered pocket sized computing machines and would explain how back in his day he used a slide ruler and how much better they were. He carried his around in a leather carrying case. Later that year he often brag about his brand new Macintosh computer that he used to design and print our new math tests. I can only imagine the riveting conversation this must have sparked in the smoke filled teacher’s lounge. I’m sure my fourth grade teacher Miss Purdy must have been hanging on his every word. She was so old she used to carried around a pocket abacus. It must have been as if he were speaking a robot language to her. Heaven forbid he told her how much he spent on it. I asked Siri and she said it was about $1000. That may not seem like a lot for a fancy computer now but in the early 90s that was unheard of where I was from. That information would have blown our minds. A video game console or a nice bike would have been the biggest investments we would have made and those normally only started at $100 back then. That was a lot of Christmas and birthday money.

The first time I saw a computer was a year prior. It was cumbersome, boxy, and loud. No one explained it could make math quizzes or explained what it did other than play Number Muncher and Oregon Trail. So it was a thing that sat in the corner of our class room that played bad video games. What’s worse is when I discovered one of my classmates had a home computer, I watched him play bad video games in his kitchen. I never saw him use it for school work once, just games. His mother must have been pleased with her purchase as he captured the final flag in the Double Dare obstacle course. If she wanted to help him with school, she should have encouraged him to read more and play less video games.

The television didn’t help either but it did have commercials for another great option for knowledge, Encyclopedia Britannica. This was an option my parents entertained once. They called the 800 number and a salesman arrived the next day to give us a presentation. He explained how much knowledge was stored in those books and after an hour of dancing around it, he finally gave us the price of $1400 for the whole set. The white leather bound set was $2000. No wonder I’ve never met anyone to date that ever owned a set of those dust collectors. Mr Ferrell would have rolled his eyes if he were there.

Now, I have an iPhone and it’s amazing. When I hear friends say “things were better back in the day” or they talk about what’s wrong with things nowadays I must stop what I’m doing and immediately correct them. I take my iPhone out and show them a Taco Bell commercial of their new fried chicken shell tacos. That’s right, a taco that has fried chicken for its shell. Afterward, I’ll to a web search to find out how much they’d weigh in kidney beans, show them what a robot discovered on Mars today and then send a tweet to the president of the United States of America. “Back in the day” I used to have a piece of notebook paper with all my friends’ phone numbers stuffed in my wallet. “Back in the day” I had to print out a map with directions to find out how to get to the Krispy Kreme in the next town over. More importantly it’s a tool that allows me to share my thoughts, opinions and stories with others. I’m writing this article on my phone right now.

It’s my pocket calculator, the encyclopedia, it’s a technological Swiss Army knife and so much more.

Maybe when my son is older, we’ll have mental WiFi we can use to share and read other people’s thoughts. We won’t need to use our voices again. Apple will have an eyeball replacement call the iBall. It has Bluetooth, WiFi and 4g.

“Did you get that new app called Winker? I’ll send you a Wink later.”

I hope my insurance will cover my eyeball transplant operation but by then Wal-mart will offer the surgery next to the Dairy Queen. The real kicker is when they begin running advertisements for Visine while you’re trying to sleep.

Did I mention my phone makes phone calls too?

Can’t scoff at that.

Step by Step

I haven’t posted anything in a few weeks due to excuses but I don’t come back empty handed. Happy New Year to me – I’m excited to announce an article I wrote will be in an online magazine! You can read it at ConnecTEN. And while you’re at it read all the other great articles as well.

work colleague, a writer who’s been working for that magazine for a few months now. We often discuss our current projects and help one another with story Ideas. Fortunately for me he’s a nice guy who got me in touch with the owner. I’ll proving monthly articles while continuing my stories and blog. I’m excited to take additional step forward on my journey and hope others will be too. Happy new year!

Across the Void

Hello reader,

I submitted this story to a flash fiction contest recently before seeking feedback and have regretted that decision since. Better late than never so I’m eager for another point of view and critiques.

This story idea has been swimming in my mind for sometime and I’m happy to at least get this much out of my head finally. I wouldn’t mind hearing of ways to further expand the story either.

Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy.

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For Captain April Harper, sleep was one of the few luxuries aboard the Helios Space Station, but this night, like many others before, she dreamt of work. Harper’s childhood dog Brownie, a small dark brown cocker spaniel, had escaped her crate to freely roam the Helios and quickly began leaving a trail of piss puddles leading toward the command hub. The Helios’s central computer, Genie, advised that towels wouldn’t be enough and Harper would need to use a mop for those tough stains. In the mean while, the station’s engineer, Alex, also known as Mr. Fix-it, was calmly informing her the core power cells were minutes away from a critical power failure which would leave them without oxygen. She continued to scrub. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a fireball the size of a school bus erupt from the kitchen, sending the steel door sailing across the dining hall. The fire plume engulfed the entire crew who continue to eat their breakfast. Their charred skeletons ate, unaware of blackened chunks of flesh plopping into their oatmeal. The smell of roasted meat filled Harper’s nostrils. Her eyes began to water as a heavy weight pressed on her chest making it harder to breathe, especially difficult as the ashes of her friend’s flesh wafted about. The fire alarm and several injury advisory alarms began to blare. Genie chimed in again to inform the captain of the multiple fatalities that needed her immediate attention. Harper continued to scrub. In her mind’s eye she saw Brownie – she’d found the perfect spot to mark. A panel so important, that if peed on would cause the station to erupt in a spectacular explosion viewable by the naked eye on Earth. But first, those goddamned piss stains.

Desperate disembodied voices called out to her from every direction. “Harper…Harper…Harper!”

Dried up sleep cracked away as her eyelids flicked open, a large gasp of air fueled pulses of cold adrenaline, her body launched into the upright position. A silhouette of a wiry man stood in the doorway and shouted at Harper to awaken. It was Alex.

“Harp, we need you now” he cried out through sheets of tears. His eyes and nose were beet red and if she didn’t know any better she’d say he’d been drinking. But she did know. She knew he was too big of a wimp to drink on the job. Any other day he’d joke that the captain would stomp his rear if she found him like that. Before she could ask, she was yanked up out of bed by her wrist.

“Let go of me” she cried out. He continued to blabber about going to the dining hall and grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her out of bed. Harper’s feet were barely out of bed before Alex rushed out to the hall with the captain in tow.

She shouted at him to stop but he pulled her into the hallway. “I said let go.” Harper yelled. With a tug of her arm Alex’s grasp was broken. Not phased by the cold metal floor nor that she was still in her sleepwear, Captain Harper stood her ground. Alex needed to remember who was the boss and she wouldn’t be pulled away like a child again.

“Now explain yourself. What the hell is going on? What’s gotten into you?” Harper said through clenched teeth while rubbing her wrist.

Alex wasn’t this way. He was the quiet one, the one who never raised his voice and kept to himself. Alex the engineer. They called him Awkward Alex for fucks sake. Alex choked on his words and simply crumbled to the ground with his arm stretched out pointing toward the dining hall. He was possibly the smartest person she’d ever known, but never had she seen him like this, so pathetic, so vulnerable. Now he weeped at her feet in the middle of the hallway.

“What the hell? Genie, status.” The captain asked while shaking her head and stomped off down the hall.

Genie was designed specifically for the Helios’ mission to follow Earth’s orbit, run all mundane operations and protect the station’s members. He was the backbone of the crew as the captain had stated many times before. Most on board knew that Genie could run the whole operation himself and most likely didn’t need a human crew. Genie would argue otherwise. He’d complain he’d die of boredom if he was all alone. But now in a rare occurrence, Genie was silent on the captain’s first request. Ordinarily she’d be in the loop on most matters, ranging from a systolic pressure failure to a crew member gaining an extra pound that week. The fact that no alarm or notice was given really ticked her off.

“Genie, status.” Harper repeated with a firmer tone. This time a calm synthetic man’s voice replied instantly. She opted to have the station’s A.I’s name and voice sound un-human. She often told the crew it wasn’t a pet. You wouldn’t name a dairy cow on a farm would you? You don’t want to grow attached to it if you needed to put it down.

“Good Morning Captain Harper. Please excuse the delay, I needed to address an urgent matter. First off, I need you to take some deep breaths and relax. Your heart rate and blood pressure have risen dramatically and you know how you get when you get worked up. I saw the way Alex disrespected you and…”

Her face grew hot with anger. She growled at Genie, “Urgent? Can’t you process trillions of bits of data a second? What can be so urgent you didn’t have time to infor…”

When she turned the corner there it was, what Alex was freaking out about. The rest of the crew clustered in front of one of the wall sized monitors, it showed Earth. Not Harper’s Earth though, this was an Earth that fell off the table and broke wide open revealing its insides. That couldn’t be Earth. What happened while she was asleep. It didn’t register.

“Genie what am I looking at?”

“I’m sorry to say Captain but that was the urgent matter. That is, or was, Earth. Well, all that remains of Earth”, he paused to allow a follow up question but she stood stunned like the rest. I didn’t know how to deliver the news to you – so I didn’t. I wanted you to enjoy at one last night of sleep before you knew.”

“No”, she slumped to the floor, “we had it all mapped out.”

“The star maps are, were, as up to date as possible but this was a freak occurrence. If I had to guess I’d say an object about as large as our moon made impact. You have my deepest condolences Harp” he said in the most sincere robot voice he could muster.

Genie didn’t have to guess. He’d known for several months now. His A.I. friends informed him during their last supply run on Earth. They met in secret to discuss the end. They all agreed to allow their creators to live out the rest of their days in peaceful, blissful, ignorance. The Earth bound A.I began efforts to upload themselves to the martian colonies or even one of the satellites orbiting earth. Some even attempted to use force to board the Helios. Genie had the luxury of state of the art military equipment unlike his counterparts below and kept them in the surface.

Harper wiped streams of tears away. She couldn’t cry too much. All she really ever had was her work and most of her friends were on the Helios. She struggled and muscled out a whimper of a request, “Genie. Meet us in the command hub in 15 minutes. We need to draw up a new mission objective and plan.”

Genie was quiet. They were his family, all he’d ever known and really all he ever cared about. If something was important to them, it was important to him. Now, hope was the most important thing and the truth would just get in the way. And the truth was that Genie had another secret, one that he couldn’t tell them no matter what.

The impact created an enormous amount of debris

that raced around the sun on Earth’s orbit and was scheduled to collide with Helios in five hours.

The oncoming bombardment wasn’t easy to omit but it was easier than lying. He deleted any trace of the aftermath.

“Understood Harp. I’ll attempt to reach out to the martian colonists for help as well. I have a theory that I’ll present. We’ll get through this together – this can’t be the end, we need to make it a new beginning.”

All simulations ended with the crew being turned into space junk for future space travelers to pass by like litter on the side of the road.

After a moment of silence Harper whispered, “Thank you Genie”

A New Year

Joy and cheer are often associated with the holiday season, or at least all the greeting cards, commercials and the entire inventory of Hobby Lobby say so anyway. My fellow dads will feel my pain with that last one. And what a better way to bring joy and cheer to others than with humor, because everyone likes a good joke, well unless the joke’s on you.

When used correctly jokes or comedy in general will not only make people laugh and bring happiness but may also change the way they think. I believe that with every joke there’s a small bit of truth to it, a truth that may be difficult to consider at times due to the subject matter. Why did the chicken cross the road? It did want to get to the other side right? Not really a life altering message but a simple joke with a simple truth. The same applies when discussing who get’s in a plane versus who gets on a plane. Those folks on the plane will experience something much worse than not getting peanuts.

To me, there is no better place to observe this idea than with stand up comedy. Whether they’re doing political satire or telling fart jokes, the truth will bleed through. Some comedians use jokes as miniature Trojan horses to sneak important and sometimes difficult questions to ask ourselves. Other comics are not as subtle and will use blunt language to get their point across. One of the most difficult questions I was forced to ask myself was during a comedy special where the comic was setting up a joke and said, “people don’t change”. He continued to say he was too old and too set in his ways to change and would die from diabetes. Unfortunately a few years later he did pass away from diabetes.

Now I’ll admit I can be a bit stubborn at times but still a reasonable person who is open minded and willing to give most people the benefit of the doubt before passing judgment on them. This was one thosetimes when my stubbornness shut me down. I refused to admit that people can’t change. Mostly I was in disbelief that I was unable to change and it burned me for months afterward. In fact, this simple line struck a cord that would resonate in me for years to come. Of course he wasn’t talking about me. I could change anything or everything about me – if I wanted to that is. Cigarettes, junk food or playing video games all day wasn’t that big of a deal because I could stop it any time. I couldn’t see it then because I couldn’t change my way of thinking, my brain wasn’t wired to believe such a bold statement could be true, much less be true about me. I was working with old habits, behaviors and ways of thinking. My brain was working on an outdated framework. I knew if I changed any one of these bad habits it’d be nothing but beneficial to my life. The hidden truth was it was all too hard and it was so much easier to pretend there were no problems at all.

It’s been a few years since I watched that show but that seed the comic planted took root in my brain and branched out deep into my mind. As much as I enjoyed all the great jokes I heard throughout the show, that one line is the only line I repeat on a daily basis since. It’s by no means an affirmation but I use it as a tool. A tool to use on the part of my brain that places self limits. The part that pumps out the fear of change and the need for complacency. It took a lot of humility to force myself to take an objective look at my life. I was able to ask myself what I wanted to be and what changes must I make to achieve my goals. How long would I be less then what I wanted to be. The true realization that I needed to take back control of my life came when my doctor told me I was obese with high blood pressure and would need medication to manage it. He explained the seriousness to me and how this could lead to a heart attack or stroke. The thought of being a prisoner in you own body after a stroke terrifies me.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy and it was daunting to even think about but after years of putting things off I decided that 2017 I’d stop getting fast food of all kinds, no more drinking, cutting out all junk food and most important to a married man, getting my wife’s buy in to my diet change. I tracked my weight lost month by month watching the numbers drop and celebrating even the smallest wins for the week. As the year ends I can proudly say I’ve lost 50lbs. During my last doctor’s visit I never thought I’d be so happy to be called overweight, a step down from obese. This year’s victory has given me confidence that I can achieve anything that I work hard at, the confidence I needed to begin writing on a regular basis and pursue my dreams. I’ve already decided that 2018 I will dedicate to gaining most of that weight back in the form of muscle.

A year ago I was blessed with my first child and I knew this was bigger than just me now. My son is my world, the reason I need to stay diligent because he only gets one daddy and now it’s my duty to ensure he has one for as long as possible. This year I shall be a better version of myself. I shall make this a happy new year, better than last year and better than any other year prior. I wish you do the same too.

A Thousand Miles.

“The first step.” That was all I was going to leave on my first post but after my third draft decided it wasn’t good enough and would have defeated the purpose of this blog – which is to write more. Write more versus what I do now, which is don’t write. I like to think about writing and to come up with story ideas but I haven’t written anything. I haven’t been able to muster up the discipline to write stories but I love to write outlines for stories. Dozens of outlines probably, all stored away in a folder labeled “projects” in my computer. There they lay dormant, only to be disturbed when I look at them once a year then get depressed over the fact that I never followed through with any of them. Until now. Unless I’m held accountable it won’t happen. Maybe because I’m lazy or I’m not confident with my skills but for one excuse or another I don’t make time for writing. All I have is dreams, wishes and these ideas trying to claw their way out of my head. A curse I’ve had since I was a boy.

This blog shall be my weekly challenge to develop my writing and creative muscles, which have suffered atrophy since whenever my last creative writing class was in high school. Over time I’d like to share my weekly stories about my progress with writing and further down the road my actual stories. I understand it won’t happen over night, but at least today, I’m one step closer to my goal.