To all the cat haters:

We're coming for you.
Eat hot lead, bitches.

O Staff Meeting! Speak to us from thy plentiful drone!

This is what I did during staff meeting last week. It was dragging on and on--as all staff meetings do--and I had to keep busy somehow. If you can't read it, click on it and it'll get bigger. And to think, I wondered if I'd be able to finish all the sentences all the times...

What's your worst staff meeting experience? C'mon, for the good of the people. This is a universal experience.

I pinch

Watch the video on this site. Scroll down a little to find it. This is a good commercial.

Thoughts on the Holocaust

So, how's that for a downer of a title, eh? Yuppers.

I don't really know why I am so struck by the Holocaust. Specifically, I think, because I don't really see it impacting many other people the way it seems to impact me. It's not that it affects me as much as it doesn't seem to be affecting others. An event that happened well outside of my lifespan is shaping me. And I'm not German or Jewish. I'm Polish. Which I know is part of it, because I know that my mother's side came from a part of Poland that was very close to Germany, most likely annexed back into Germany during the war--land Germany had lost during the first world war. So I am connected to Poland, which is where some of the worst ghettos and most of the concentration camps were located.

The two most powerful influences on me have been the film The Pianist and more recently the graphic novel Maus. You owe it to yourself to experience both, regardless of your thoughts or feelings or impressions of the Holocaust or the war. They are incredible, sadly beautiful works of passionate realism and history, telling the real stories of four real people. The Pianist is less about the Holocaust and more about what life was like for Jews in Warsaw, Poland during the war. Maus is the story of an artist born after the war talking with his father, a Jew who survived Auschwitz. They bring pictures to life. They tell me that real people did these things and real people experienced them. I'm reminded that such evil has happened many times before this, and will certainly happen (is already happening?) again. I'm reminded of the potential for evil in the heart of all humanity. The power of fear. Our desperate need for love, forgiveness, and grace on an individual, personal level and on a social, cultural level. Thank you, Yeshua, Jesus, savior and deliverer. Help us not to do this to each other.

Where are my friends?

Where are the people that will help me to see who I am and who I am not? Where are the people with the courage to say these things, with the depth of friendship to survive them? Where are the voices telling me which way to go? Where are the teachers and mentors, encouraging, directing, and expanding my knowledge, skills, and understanding?

Do I chase them off? Am I too hard? Too overbearing? Too socially awkward? Not worthwhile enough? Uninteresting? Self-possessed? Elusive? Resistant?

How can I be responsible for my own change when so many forces have shaped me into who I currently am?

How many of these questions are fair?

cha cha cha

I am excited about the game development business. I have loads to do in prep for that happening, and I am slow to do it. I need to learn about business, but I am not a strong reader (it bores me to tears) of educational materials. I wasted hundreds of dollars on text books I never read. Never even opened 'em. Anyway, that seems to be the primary way to self-teach finance and business implementation. A shame, because it means I now have work to do. In fact, I even have an awesome text book about game design, and I'm having a hard time reading it. Or the bible? It's not a part of my habitual life.

How else have I been? I never seem to know how to phrase these answers. I am doing well. I am almost always doing well. But at the same time never doing well. It's in my nature to not be satisfied unless I'm high on endorphins. I like my life. I like to think about serious things. I want my life to have meaning. I guess these are the things most people want, but I feel them very keenly. These days are slipping us by, as you already know, and I want them to mean something. We only get so many days here on earth. I like that thought, but I also don't want to squander it. Life is too enjoyable/experiential/rich/beautiful for that. What is my story going to be, you know? I want it to be simple but inspiring. It doesn't have to be grand (anymore), but I would like it to be full of goodness. Mainly, I don't want to putter through my days anymore. But, it is what comes naturally to me--I am not gifted in broad planning, I am gifted in focusing intently. I feel sometimes (for as much as I do not wish this to be true) that I am a fine tool. I am capable of great works, but I need someone to pick me up and put me to use. To give me direction. I say that I don't want that to be true because I also have some leadership skills--not so much in task management as in people management. I'm interested now in developing these aspects of myself. Which is ironic, given what I just said about needing to be put to use.

Heat index of 105 degrees

I ate outside today for lunch.

My Oreos melted.

They melted.

I did not think that was even possible.

Still, the sunshine was enjoyable.