My Mid-Life Crisis: A Unicycle

I finally did it. I hit my mid-life crisis and bought a unicycle. What I find fascinating is that, despite the difficulty of learning to ride one in my 30s, I'm finding myself dedicated to learning it.

I finished day 7 of riding it, and I'm able to travel about 6 feet without holding on to anything. Not consistently, but it's a definite sign of improvement.

A Solution to the Debate over Marriage in the US

I live in the blue dot in the middle of Texas, so the legal issue over what "marriage" means is hotly debated in bumper stickers. There's the "marriage = one man and one woman" camp and the "gay rights" camp.

I have an answer to this whole debate. It seems to me that the whole issue around this debate stems from marriage being a religious union. Since the U.S. government is supposed to have a separation between church and state, I propose that marriage be removed from the law.

So, if you want to be married, by all means go ahead. It's your decision. But the law shouldn't have any special language about it.

However, there should be special accommodations for families. What makes it so special when two unrelated people want to live together, as opposed to, say, two brothers? Yeah, the two unrelated people generally have children, but there's all kinds of circumstances where children are raised by people other than their natural parents.

Blogging A Novel

I've been turning a fantasy world in my head for many months, now. Recently, I've been making notes on the world, and otherwise trying to assemble it into a coherent form. Then, the inevitable happened.

I added a story.

I created a general outline for a story, added a few rough characters, and now I've got the itch (again). This time I might make it happen.

I'm starting now with exploring the world's people and parts of its history through legends and myths. I'll merge this, soon, with a character study, of which some may enter the main story, others may move into historical characters, and others may be thrown out. I'll also work on the story sketches.

My point of this post reflects a desire to start putting up some of the fleshed out stories that come out of these initial sketches. I'll see where it goes.

Looking Back At My Old Works

I've recently gone back to look over a screenplay I wrote back in about 2001. It's a slow moving thriller (okay - a yawner) about a set of conspiracy groups all fighting it out over a hidden religious secret which turns out to be the direct descendants of Jesus.

After realizing that I could have cashed this in for millions, I started to rewrite it based around the Key of Solomon. Then I found that Dan Brown wants to turn this into a novel, too. Further investigations show that what I'm really looking to focus on is that .'. (3 dot triangle) symbol used in occult order names, which symbolizes both a mystical secret and that the order knows the Lost Word of Masonry.

I'll see where this next revision takes me.

Iraq War Was For Oil?

I've been wondering something lately. I've been hearing more and more talk of late that the U.S. went into Iraq for oil. However, I wonder how much oil the U.S. has sent to Iraq for the war. I mean, Iraq doesn't have oil refineries in any kind of capacity to supply itself. That means the U.S. planners had to burn oil to send out the troops and equipment, they had to send oil to power all the vehicles and generators that keep the troops working in their long shifts on patrol, and they had to burn oil to send the oil to the troops and equipment.

So, just how much oil was the U.S. supposed to "win", and how much have the U.S. planners had to burn to get that oil? I don't have the resources to find out personally, but I think it's still an interesting question.

Deeper Look Into Past Presidents

So, I was curious as to the other previous presidents and their career before becoming president.

• Dwight Eisenhower: Supreme Commander of NATO right before becoming President.
• Harry Truman: Senator, then VP to FDR.
• FDR: Senator, then Governor of New York, then President.
• Herbert Hoover: Secretary of Commerce, then President.
• Calvin Coolidge: Governor of Massachusetts, VP, then President.
• Warren Harding: the first sitting Senator to become President.
• Woodrow Wilson: Governor of New Jersey, then President.
• Williant Taft: Secretary of War, then President.
• Teddy Roosevelt: Governor of New York, VP, then President.

And so on.

My First Run With A Mod Tracker

As I mentioned earlier, I've been playing around with Mod Trackers for authoring and remixing music. As I've discovered, it all depends upon getting really high quality samples. A few days ago I finished my first attempt at one of these. The mixing needs some work, but overall I'm fairly happy with the outcome.

Now I just need to find some way to get that file onto this site...