The single individuals scheduling Catch-22.

I'm a single individual. Do I want to stay that way forever? No. Well probably not. I think. Maybe? That's probably a different blog all together. But one of the biggest challenges I have had recently is trying to find a workable schedule.

I don't like having empty space on my schedule. Quite nights home alone are nice at times but I don't need them every week. If I'm not out having fun. I'd rather be working. And if I don't have someone worth having fun with, then I'd definitely rather be working. Why do nothing when you could be making money? Plus working is much healthier than me left to my own devices. Trust me.

So I fill my calendar. I pick up shifts. I have two jobs. I schedule volunteer opportunities. I try to pick up hobbies/diversions. (Some are surprisingly expensive over time. See: GoldenTee/Broomball/refinshing that damn table.) I set outlandish goals for myself and try to reach them. I like to be busy. Busy makes me feel good.

So when the opportunity comes up to spend time with someone I might be interested in and who might enjoy my company as well...it's like planning a shuttle reentry. There is a very limited window of opportunity. I swear this is not a problem that is limited to me. When dating or just trying to get to know someone better even on a friends level, I have had dozens of these types of conversations:

Person 1: We should get together this week!
Person 2: That sounds great. What works for you.
Person 1: Well, I have work at my second job Monday and Thursday nights, and Friday I already have plans to volunteer at the animal shelter. Saturday I'm running a 5k and Sunday I have to dog sit for my neighbors who are in vacation in Iceland at the International Yodeling Championships. So maybe Tuesday for like 35 minutes after my Ice Carving class?
Person 2: Damn. Tuesday I have Hot Yoga and then volunteer at the mortuary.

This continues for about 10 minutes until both parties realize that the first time they have time to hang out is roughly the first week of June. It's insane. It seems that everyone is packing so much into their lives that they don't have time to have a life. We all want to seem driven and self improvement junkies or super human go-getters who grab seize the carp of the day.

One of my goals for 2013 was to make time to have time to have a life. So I changed my work availability. I now have one night each week for me. No kids. No work. Just me. It worked for a bit. I played broomball, I loved it. I fell victim to some of my over competitive jerk like tendencies but I did it.

Then Broomball ended. In the 4 weeks that followed I have successful had one night as planned. All the others, I picked up shifts at job number two. Bad Adam. That is exactly what I said I wouldn't do.

So starting March 19th and going until the entire apple cart is upset in May. I'm free on Tuesday nights. No work. I swear. Let's do something, bowling, trivia, rock climbing, board game night, live music, food coma, canasta. I don't know what but on Tuesday's - I'm going to try and have a life. 

Random Tuesday Thoughts and Links

I haven't blogged in months. Holidays are a bad time for me and the first two months of 2013 have seemingly flown by. Here are some things I have been thinking and linking.

Goal of 40 novels in 2013 is already in bad shape. Two months in, I have successfully completed only one book. Yeah. One. 39 to go. Way to get out of the gate quick...

Luckily, I was very pleased with that one book. A Half Price books bargin bin selection that I purchased for $2. I probably like it more because of the perceived value as well. I plan on writing a full review blog this week...but the best laid plans of mice and Adam usually go asunder. It was Embedded by Dan Abnett. It is easily worth the $8 on Amazon.

Recently I have enjoyed the writing on Grantland. This piece on the Houston Rockets is a good example of the fact that intelligent analysis and actual journalism can exist in a sports media world dominated by ESPN and their shows of loudmouths arguing.

Incidentally, ESPN's daytime programming is just the same conversations you would hear in any bar in any sports town after a sporting event. Boring, borish and brutal to the brain.

I love alliteration. Always and ad infinitum

Once I was political. Once I lived in Boston. Always I am thankful this guy didn't become President. He weirds me out. Also British rags have the best headlines ever.

I'm glad she won. Her performance in A Winter's Bone is one of my favorites. I love that the world is falling in love with her. I hate that there will be an inevitable backlash against Jennifer Lawrence.

This Daily Show clip about the clips of the meteor exploding in Russia is awesome and amazing.

TANK!!!!

Add They Might be Giants to the list of concerts I should go to, want to go to, will probably procrastinate too long to get tickets too. 

Tonight and tomorrow I plan on watching most if not all of the first season of Game of Thrones in preparation for season 3. I also plan on keeping a running diary of thoughts and reactions. Again..plans...mice...me..asunder...

Stephen King's Under the Dome now TV series

It took me a long time to come around to Stephen King the writer. I always considered him a horror writer. I don't do horror. I don't read it. I don't watch it. I avoid it. History of night terrors does that. But I read his Colorado Kid when it was first published by Hard Case Crime. It's brilliant. A story about a story. The Colorado Kid was used as the inspiration for SyFy's Haven. It's turned out very well.

News broke yesterday that King's Under the Dome has been optioned by CBS for a 13 episode series next fall. I'm have my trepidations but the material could certainly lend itself to an excellent series. The book is engrossing and captivating in a modern small town Lord of the Flies sort of way. I will definitely have to reread it before next fall.

  

My own worst Enemy?

Does a joke create negative momentum? Am I really my own worst enemy?

Two events in the past 48 hours have caused me to consider if that maybe my history of sarcasm, self deprecation and pessimism has gone too far. Perhaps, all the snide remarks, the "if only" and "worst case scenario" statements that I have made for nearly 20 years have created such a negative environment around me that it's become it's own momentum.

Over the top? Hogwash? Maybe. Probably. Yet consider these two events.

A. On Monday I was confident that my fantasy football team was going to prevail in this weeks completely unimportant and meaningless statistical match up. I had a 35 point lead with my opponent left with a singular player on Monday night. I went so far as to say, and this is a direct quote,

"As long as Cam Newton doesn't score 37 points I should be fine."

I was confident but portrayed that in sarcasm and worst case scenario thinking. What happened? Cam Newton scored EXACTLY 37 points on Monday night. Surprising? Yes. Impossible? No. Newton seemingly did that all year in 2011. He's clearly capable. It was simply timing. Not bad timing. Because fantasy football really shouldn't factor into good v bad in life.

My response to this was typical, "Just my luck" It's such a habit.

B. Last night a friend brought to my attention, just how much I slam on myself. While it may have come off a bit harsh, she was completely right. I can't even count how many times in a day I make a self deprecating comment, joke or personal slight. It's nonstop. Name the category, I've got a line. Height, weight, divorce, diet, dating, age, nerd, goofy, theater, horrible person, the worst...etc. I do it too often. I need to make an effort not to do it.

The second part of what my friend said was harder to hear. But no less true. People who constantly verbally beat on themselves tend to do so because they truly believe it and/or they're begging for someone to contradict them. "You're not short", "You're not old", "You'll meet someone" etc. It's nice to hear those things. But it's exhausting to have to constantly say them to the same person over and over. I need to hear those things in my own head. Not from someone else.

So does this mean that I am my own worst enemy? That my negativity brings negativity into my life. Or that I can always find the worst case, the least positive outcome, the dark shadow in every rainbow? The esteemed website Wikipedia claims the following about "Self Fulfilling Prophecy"

"A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behaviour......In other words, a positive or negative prophecy, strongly held belief, or delusion - declared as truth when it is actually false - may sufficiently influence people so that their reactions ultimately fulfill the once-false prophecy."

So yeah, it would seem that given that definition, and the anecdotal evidence previously presented that I can be my own worst enemy - when I focus on the negative.

I have so many positives in my life. I have a home, a job, a car, a kick ass Lego collection, friends, family, future, memories, adventures (past, present and future) and so many more. I've done, lived and experienced some wonderful, captivating and amazing things. Perhaps if I keep my mind focused on the positive, I can be my own best ally.

In short, I'm going to try to be less of a pessimistic piss-ant.

P.S. My apologies if your web search for the Christian Slater TV series My Own Worst Enemy led to you to this page. I'm not just being negative when I say, it sucked. If you want Slater, go watch Heathers or Kuffs - they're vastly superior. Of that I'm positive.

P.P.S. Also my apologies if a search for Lit's "My Own Worst Enemy" brought you to this blog. And now it's in everyone's head. You're welcome.

Sometimes I Google myself.

We all do it occasionally. It's been a while since I gave it a try. Some times I find things that are actually me. Sometimes I find things that are so ridiculous and amazing, that I want to take credit for them. I don't know Adam Winegarden from Germany. He hasn't uploaded any new Youtube videos in years. It's a shame.

My favorite is that the back up singers are clearly just the artist looped over himself. 

And what cover album would be complete without....

I've kept tabs on Adam Winegarden who played QB at UT-Chattanooga. He's been a head high school at several schools. I occasionally get mail from UT-Chattanooga. They think I'm him.

And sometimes hidden in amongst all that is a gem.

Last Resort - Review (Spoilers) First 2 Episodes

On Earth H. I lived a very different life. I played high school football. I was a mediocre diver. I never left Nebraska. I attended a Shania Twain concert. And when my dream of walking on to the Cornhusker football team proved to be nothing like Rudy, I did the only thing a normal corn fed midwestern boy who longed for the water could possibly do. I joined the Navy and served on a submarine....

Ok. I only assume that's what happened on Earth H. In reality, I really have loved submarines and submarine stories. 2000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Hunt for Red October, Crimson Tide, Run Silent Run Deep, K19 The Widowmaker, U-571 - whether it was watching Jack Ryan play cat and mouse with Marko Ramius or Lt. Andrew Tyler keep his mean together in the face of all those ominous depth charges, I was hooked. If it's got a submarine, I'm in.

So it was with some trepidation that I waded into the waters of the new drama Last Resort. The cast was intriguing, Andre Braugher, Scott Speedman, even Robert Patrick in his customary bad guy role. There was even Dichen Lachman and Jessy Schram, veterans of Dollhouse and Falling Skies respectively. It was an interesting premise. What would good men do when asked to do the unthinkable? What would their actions cause, prevent etc?

The pilot sets the stage well enough. The in boat drama is there. Will they or won't they fire the missiles? Much like Crimson Tide/U571 there is conflict as to who's really in charge of the boat. The missiles aren't fired but it doesn't matter as another warship nukes two areas of Pakistan and the Navy turns on our intrepid heroes.

Once the action shifts to the small island that the crew basically invades, the story necessarily changes. This really isn't a show about a submarine. It wants to be a show about right and wrong, noble and evil actions and to make the audience think about the consequences of all of the preceding. Yet to me this is where the butter gets spread to thin on the bread.

The captain has a son, who's serving in the middle east currently and will be directly impacted by nuclear attacks. Speedman as the XO not only has a lovely wife at home but also an added back story of torture and Russian roulette in a North Korean prison camp.  Daisy Betts as arguably the female lead of the show plays a common Hollywood military cliche, the unprepared officer who is in over her head. As if that wasn't enough, she's also the daughter of an Admiral, so it's clearly just a political post. Or is it.

Two episodes in and the plot is expanding rapidly. We haven't even touched on the people who live on the island, the NATO listening post, the thinly created female Tony Stark (Autumn Reeser) who lives in DC and is brilliant, beautiful and tough as nails. She created a device that is basically the Caterpillar drive from Red October. Last Resort wants to be a grand drama that has many different plot points that all weave together - not unlike Tom Clancy's style of writing. Two recent dramas with large casts actually succeeded, Lost and Battlestar Galactica. However, neither of those series tried to go so deep so fast.

If there is one thing that can be learned from a lifetime of loving submarine stories, it's that the deeper you go, the more pressure there is. Only two episodes in, I'm worried that Last Resort might be out of it's depth.

Is Lowe's the modern Big Brother

After the Patriot Act, there were reams of people concerned that the government would be tracking all of our actions, keeping extensive files on every person in the country. This massive amount of information on each person would be a huge invasion of privacy. Yet now we have these...

Lowe's will remember your air filter....

 Lowe's can track what paint you used....

At what point does convenience out weigh invasion? When do you consider information sacred and when is it simply data?  Questions I never expected Lowe's to make me consider.