log entries of timotheus

Memories that I haven’t thought of in a really long time have been coming at me from all angles this week. I think it has to do with pondering Baltimore, about when I used to live there (up until I was ten).

Memory is a funny thing. It is interesting how all these memories are intertwined, how when I think of one, I think of the other. I’m even remembering some of my childhood play scenarios I used to do.

It’s like thinking in a certain framework will give you access to other thoughts that have been previously thought of in that framework. My mind tried to make sense of it, and ended up with a virtual college campus in my mind. Why a college campus? Well, because it makes sense. The different buildings represent different stages in my life. Have you ever been in college, and you have a class in a building you haven’t been in for quite a while? Memories of the times you were in their before come right back, even to what you were feeling, thinking during your time in there.

When I think back to when I lived in Baltimore, it’s like I’m entering an old class building I haven’t been into in a while. There are all sorts of people around me in the hallway, but they are shadowy; I can’t make them out. Then, you see one you recognize, a memory from back then, shining like a beacon in this darkened hall. You go to follow it, and as you do, your constantly brushing up against other memories, and these too flash gold and you remember them. It can be a little overwhelming.

Another weird coincidence is that I ran across this image on flickr last night:

A spring rider at Double Rock Park

This park was really close to my house, and I used to ride that thing when I was little. I haven’t seen it since I was 8 at least. I had some serious flashback when I saw it. (The whale was my favorite, BTW)

Would it be weird to write about my childhood? There are some interesting short stories in there.

I’ve been working on trying to merge my old wordpress blog (2004-2006) with this new one. The problem I’m having is since it’s WordPress 1.2, the database structure is totally different. I might be able to use some PERL to parse the things, but that will be a little tricky.

In the meantime, I was looking through my old entries, and I found this one from July 2005. I had just moved into my first apartment. Check it out:

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. I needed to come here one last time because my metal media rack and dresser are still here. My Dad and I will go to work tomorrow, then get the company truck and use it to haul my stuff tomorrow night.

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. All my clothes, books, and computers are gone, with the exception of my laptop. In this absence of distractions, I find my imagination filling in lapse moments with random images. I think my imagination works better with nothing to distract it.

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. Last night I slept at my new apartment, on the living room floor. I needed to be there early for the comcast guy. Anyway, it was around 9pm, and I had nothing else to do, so I laid on my back, and listened to the ‘World of Warcraft’ soundtrack on my MuVo. I looked at the textured ceiling, and noted that if I wanted any image to be formed from them, all I needed to do was concentrate of what I wanted to see. Nothing specific, but something to give my brain a rough idea. An example would be, “an angry face”. In a moments time, the light and dark patterns of the ceiling have a pattern, and I can piece together a face of a man, howling in rage. The phrase ‘howling in rage’ occurs in many books, but this was the first time I had seen it. Rage looks to me like someone allowing hatred to fill the essence of their soul, even pushing out all the good things to make room for the hatred, then focusing all that raw hate towards a single person. I can feel what this image feels. Just staring at the person you hate isn’t enough, but words can’t describe the feeling you have. The hatred must have an outlet, so it taps into your vocal processor, and emits a sound. The two cannot interface properly, it’s like describing the color ‘blue’ to a blind person, but what erupts from the mans mouth gets the point across. If hatred could be personified as a sound, that is what comes from within this man. His howl of rage. It appears hatred is a powerful and destructive ally.

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. I had a dream last night, that I was in a society of people who wore masks. I never saw a face, I just saw the persons mask that best defined their personality. Some people were smiling, some were frowning, some angry, and some sad. Masks can be so very descriptive of emotion; even the eye slots were different for each one. I walked around this marketplace, and talked to several of the masked people there. Then there was a commotion on the far end of the square. A lone man entered, and people gave him a wide berth. He walked slowly, almost gliding; his hands not moving in motion with his body. He had a mask I hadn’t seen until that moment. It had thin rectangles for eyes, and a bigger rectangle for his mouth. No emotion at all. People started going back to their jobs, but the nearest one to him got too close, and the emotionless one jumped on her. He buried his face in the victims neck, his mask getting pushed up a bit in the process. A horrible sound came from the victim, then she was quiet. The emotionless one stood up, his back to me, and repositioned his mask. He then helped the victim up. They both turned to me. Both their masks were emotionless now. They both turned to two emotional masked people next to them. They jumped in tandem at their victims. Tandem screams from their prey. In a matter of minutes, all the people in the square were similarly attacked and turned emotionless. People stood at their carts, or at the tables, not moving. Only staring at me. All their masks wore the same emotionless blank. All sounds stopped. That strange noise that is heard when there is dead silence filled my ears. Slowly they all took a step towards me. I was frightened.

I’m sitting in my old room at my parents house. I can’t help but notice the other conscience in my head. It has always been there, this other-side-of-the-coin Tim, but I’ve always never listened to him, in fear of what he’d do with me. It’s not another personality or anything, it’s more like the same song in a minor chord. Happy things become mournful. Good endings become futile. I need this side of me for my writing to improve. He knows he has something I need. I’m scared to ponder what it will cost me.

Apparently this is two years old and I missed it.

Still relevant though!

Watch the video.

This was developed in 1945 for Navy Pilots.
Flight thru Instruments

The graphics are super pretty, I think.

This might seem odd, but when I drive I very rarely listen to music or anything now. I prefer the silence, because my mind does some crazy wandering. This often triggers talking to myself, talking out ideas and such.

Silence, I’m not crazy.

Anyway, because I’m procrastinating on writing for NaNoWriMo, I thought I’d share three of the many things that I pondered on my 15 minute drive home today.

1) I remembered, quite out of the blue, the CB radio callsigns we used when we drove out across the US in 1992, from Maryland to California. The ’87 Caravan, driven by my Mom, was ‘Mother Goose’. The ’67 (yr?) Buick LeSabre, driven by my Dad, was ‘Grimm’. Our friends, who were moving out to California as well, were driving a 1988 Monte Carlo, callsign ‘Atilla’.

It was 1992, and CBs were awesome. Actually, they still are.

2) In some relationships I’ve observed (and been a part of), although there are proclamations, on both sides, of equal financial contribution, that isn’t always the case. The gentlemen may find himself paying much more than half of the expenses of things, maybe upwards of eighty percent. However, when this is brought up to the lady, she spins it as the gentlemen being cheap, and “always worried about money”, or “why are you making a big deal out of this?”. The classic ‘No-Win’ scenario, and no Starfleet computer to hack.

Then, in a blinding flash of cognizance, I understood (and started laughing). This is EXACTLY why men make more money than women. Men have to. I’m not saying it’s fair, because it’s not. But it’s not discrimination, it’s preservation. Men are just trying to keep out of the poorhouse, and at the same time ignore the blatant financial fraud being committed in relationships around the globe.*

3) If Kermit the Frog had, in his possession, photos of Beanie Babies, could he be arrested for possession of child pornography?*

It’s amazing how my mind works.

*These points were thought up, knowing they were wacky, bizarre and funny, not because I necessarily believe them as truth.

I came across the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. That is a great resource.

Doing some simple reading on the site has motivated me to go home and do some deep reading.

Actually, thinking some more, I’ve realized that lately, I’ve strayed from my earlier philosophic goals. The past couple of months or so I’ve been just drifting along, not accomplishing much. I mean, I accomplish things at work, but my personal projects have fallen to the wayside, for the most part.

I did a tremendous amount of reading last month, but it was mostly fiction. I need to delve into some literature that stimulates the mind, and acquaint myself with some previously unknown information.

Also, my plan for pruning down my material possessions hasn’t done much lately. I haven’t accrued anything new, but haven’t lightened the load either.

This weekend I’m going to get rid of several boxes from my closet. How will I do this, you may ask. Well, it’s simple. They’re boxes filled with computer games, and music. I’m going to buy several CD binders, and start filling them up. I figure I can replace my four boxes with 3-4 binders.

Then I need to pick up my room. It’s gotten cluttered with mostly papers and random giblets, and those need to go. Also, I should get rid of my Pentium III computer, since I never use it, and it just sits in the middle of my room.

This post sort of went all over the place, but that’s ok. To my readers, I call upon you to not let this weekend go to waste. Get something done off your list.

Two neat things in the renewable energy field.

First up, we have CoolEarth, a solar panel company. Here is the neat thing, their solar collectors are inflatable. Each one is like a balloon, that is halfway clear to allow light in, then is concentrated via the reflective inside to a small, but highly efficient photovoltaic. Much more solar energy harnessed for a lot less photovoltaics.

Second, we have Helix Wind, a wind turbine company. Their design is pretty interesting, it maximizes surface area to generate the most amount of energy. It works in breezes as low as 3.5mph. Also, you don’t have to worry about the birdies getting chopped up. It isn’t a whirring blade that is hard to see, it is a constant shape, so birds avoid it. It also looks pretty. They come in 2kW and 5kW models, being 9ft and 12ft tall, respectively. Also, due to their unique design, they work in nearly every environment, from urban to suburban, and can be mounted lower than normal wind turbines. All in all, pretty neat.

NaNoWriMo is going ok, I’m up to 9104 words. I should be at 11666, but I’m working on it. I’ve made a lot of progress on the plot in my mind. I think this is going to be a fairly decent story when it’s done.

For recreational activities, I’ve been playing Fire Emblem for the Gameboy Advance. I actually have been using an emulator, because I don’t feel like squinting down at my gameboy. Instead, I play it on my media comp, which outputs it to my TV. So it’s like a big gameboy. The graphics are good enough that it looks like a SNES game, so thats cool. And yes, I do have a USB gamepad.

Reading has taken a little bit of a break. Since I read seventeen books last month, I’m a little burned out.

Just a little update, I’m in Berkeley visiting some good friends of mine.

Maiki and I are participating in NaNoWriMo, and actually are both writing a story in a fictional world we created. (More maiki’s than mine.) We’re posting our stories up on a blog we made specifically for this. See the banner on the right to check it out. My story is the one tentitively titled “Skyships and Tech Chips.” We’re posting our content as we write it, so it isn’t a finished product or anything. It’s a good way for each of us to keep an eye on each other, and make sure we’re making those entries.

When we’re finished, I believe we’re going to take a month to edit our stories, then use a print-on-demand book printing company like Lulu to print our work, and make an actual book out of it. It won’t be a “Lord of the Rings” or anything (or will it?!?!), but it should be an entertaining read anyway. We’re also releasing our story under a Creative Commons license, allowing for derivative works with attribution and share-alike.

Ok, now I need to get to work on todays 1,666 words! I realized last night, reading through what I’d written, that I rushed a scene. Today’s work is mostly going to be fleshing that out more.

“These late nights at the office are going to kill me,” he thought, pulling down the covers of the bed. In one quick motion, he crawled in, turned out the light and pulled up the covers. The gentle night noises sooth him; the rythmic ticking of the clock make his eyelids droop.

He sucks in a quick breath in fear and opens his eyes wide into the darkness.

“I don’t have a clock..”