Long Time No Post, Election Thoughts

I’m  still alive, it just so happened that I was very busy running the campaign of Mark Johannessen, who was running for mayor of West Sacramento, we lost.  When I took the job I really had no idea what all was involved with running a ground campaign.  Working on one as a volunteer does little to prepare you for all the stuff that goes on in one of these things.  I’d have been even more overwhelmed if the campaign hadn’t of had the services of a very good consulting firm (from what I hear, what do I know about political consulting?).

So, that explains my long absence, While I was busy trying to get my candidate elected the rest of the nation got Barack Hussien Obama elected!  I’m optimistic that perhaps some positive changes will occur in the United States, though expectations for our President-Elect are through the roof, and the crises he’ll be facing on day one are enough to bury the greatest of Presidents.  If I had a wish list of the things I’d like to see happen in the next four years it’d look like this:

  1. End the War on Terror, roll back all the laws passed because of it that have infringed on civil liberties
  2. End the War of Drugs and the militarization of our peace keeping forces (the police/firefighters/EMTs)
  3. Insure the Internet remains free and unregulated
  4. Re-examine the Fairness Doctrine and the consolidation of media, or free the airwaves!
  5. Stop growing the military-industrial complex
  6. Start providing policy that helps the majority of Americans as opposed to the privileged few
  7. Look into re-regulating of banks and credit markets,  a balance between the complete unregulation of the early ’20s and contemporary times and the over regulation of the late ’70’s

The only one of these I see happening soon is a scale back of the War on Terror, as to an end of it… Doubtful.  So, as a Democratic Progressive where do I go from here and what do I put my time and money into?  I’m thinking about applying for the grand jury here in Yolo County and trying to use it as it was originally intended:  protecting citizens from the government and trying to take it away from prosecuters and judges who see it merely as a rubber stamp for their actions… Speaking of activism, the greatest disappoint for me was the passing of Proposition 8 (and similiar bills in other states) and the loss of civil libertiess to homosexuals.  This bill is bigotry, dress it up however you like, and homosexuals and progressives are going to sit down as rights are denied to them.  I’m sick of hearing about tradition as well.  “Tradition” generally means backwards, patriarchal, and based on nothing more than silly old stories.  As a nation we’ve overcome traditional ownership (slavery), traditional suffrage (male property owners), traditional government (monarchy, oligarchy), and I look forward to overcoming traditional marraige.

It’ll be interesting to see where we go from here, as to moving away if things don’t work out just how I’d like, where would I (or you) go?  I’m an American, this is where I live, this is where my forefathers lived, It’s my duty to them and my progeny to make here a better place.

Next post won’t be so heavy, promise!

Who know I’d be addicted to DnD?

I’ve only played Dungeons and Dragons once.  I was 20 and drove an hour and a half to an acquitances house and jumped into a compaign already underway as a dwarf paladin (I think).  Sitting in a garage with people I barely knew, rolling dice for reasons I didn’t know wasn’t much fun.  I was invited back but I never accepted the invitation, I decided I was nerdy enough playing video games, board games, table-top war games, card games, etc., etc.

So it is with the greatest surprise that I find myself currently addicted to the new facebookapplication, Dungeons and Dragons Tiny Adventures.  The great thing about it is, I don’t have to do anything!  I don’t have to know the arcane rules, I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not,  I don’t have to create a character…  In actuality the application is nothing more than a paper-doll program with narrative, and  a little bit of social interaction thrown in.  Not much to it, but I’ve only been playing for about a week and my character is already nearing level 10 (which as I understand is where normal DnD characters max out, you need more books, or something, after that).

So if you’ve got a facebook account and want the easiest possible introduction to what DnD and roleplaying games are, click the link above and start adventuring!

Getting back to Thinking – Part 1 – Time

Help you find some time

Remember when you were a child? Well skip a few years ahead, I can’t remember much of my childhood at all. Remember when you were a teenager? Remember all the thoughts you had?  All the thoughts you thought, all the moral, ethical, philosophical quandaries you deliberated with yourself in your head? All of the things you solved. You solved a lot and you shared it with your friends, and together you solved a great deal more!  When you took your thoughts to another adult though, one older than you, they were disregarded. Superficially investigated and then thrown away… why?  When I was a teenager I didn’t know why and it seemed awfully unfair… then I graduated from high school, got into college, began working and guess what? I stopped having those thoughts, I stopped being torn by ethical dilemmas and philosophical debates with myself and I stopped sharing with my peers.

I think I know why and how that happened, I think I know why “grown-ups” and adults don’t listen to teens.  It isn’t because we know any better, or have valuable life lessons, or whatever bullshit you were given or are now giving out. No, its because I don’t, and most other adults don’t, think anymore!  We simply don’t have the time… we’re too busy working, or pursuing our careers, or work on ourselves, or trying to relax, you can insert whatever it is you do, or see your peers doing.  When was the last time you didn’t have to worry about anything and could just think…

Been quite awhile hasn’t it?

So how do you find these thoughts?  It comes down to time. As a youth, as a teenager you had a lot of time… Time to think thoughts, follow chains of them, reject hypothesis after hypothesis and then synthesize your results from dozens, hundreds, or thousands of little conversations in your head into a cogent (mostly) theory.  All that takes time though, and once you’ve left school, and left home, time becomes a commodity more valuable than gold. So valuable is it now that careerists – those stuck on the corporate or free-lance treadmill are trying to find a way to convert their money back into time! My guess though is that you have a lot of time, you just don’t realize how much of it gets wasted.

First you need to find time then. Where?

Like I said, you probably have mcuh more time than you think you do, you just don’t know how or where you’ve spent it. Here is where something I like to call a time budget comes in.  Just like a normal bugdet, which takes expenses, cash flow, debots and credits a time budget tracks where and how you spend your time.  Keep a time journal for a week, noting how long you spend doing any item, or nothing, after keeping meticulous track of how you spend your time analyze it.  Where are you spending more time than you’d like to?  Where are you wasting time?  How better can you manage it? Once you’ve found areas of improvement, act!  Stop spending so much time in front of a screen (TV, PC, or other).

Once you’ve found the time (and you will!) it’s time to start thinking about what helps you think most!  Which is what the next post on this topic will be about.

Helpful links for finding time:

Finding Time – Stepcase Lifehack

Reclaim your Time – Zen Habits

Finding Time – In Context

A Small Plug

Hey I pimp myself!

for my work, the creative kind.  I have a page at DeviantArt where I’ve posted some photography, short stories, and poetry.  It’s mostly poetry at this point, but hey give it a look and live a comment.

DeviantArt page

I’m sure I’ll be updating here soon…

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