Old Limits, New Heights – an update & news

Twenty-seven is a strange age.

You’re old enough now to have enough experience to “know better” and have gone through enough tribulations that you’ve come out the other side of some difficulty; but at the same time, still young enough to be referred to as “a kid in their 20’s.” In a lot of ways, it’s kind of having the best of both worlds: enough years under your belt to claim experience and authority in some situations, but just enough green to claim ignorance and get away with it most of the time.

It’s also tricky, because I want to introduce a story with “when I was a young man,” or “when I was younger,” they both feel a little disingenuous because I mean, like, five years ago.

…

So, when I was a young(er) rapscallion, I was delusional about my prowess in hand-to-hand combat. Like we discussed way back in “Fight Club: Fringe League,” I’m way more cognisant of those limits nowadays. I know that I don’t know the correct way to uncork a punch. I’m aware I don’t have a trained poise for rolling with or absorbing punches and kicks. I have some idea of how hard it is to control yourself or another human while in a wrestling scramble. But a few years ago, that wasn’t the case at all.

I argued with friends and coworkers, pretty vehemently mind you, that I could handle myself in a fight with a mountain lion. I was convinced that as the cat would leap at me, I could sidestep it, pop it in the mouth, and leave it dazed and confused on the dirt. I had a whole technique that was 100% foolproof (emphasis on “fool,” here) wherein my thumbs would hook the corners of its mouth and my forearms would block the claws just below the paw, rendering me completely safe from its assault.

I realized later that, as a cat in that situation, it would still have hind legs with sharp-ass claws that it would use to deftly carve open my soft-ass torso, disemboweling me in maybe a few seconds.

And while I’m ranting about this, another thing. I saw a YouTube video some years ago (I tried finding it, but to no avail – so allow me to paint the scene) featuring a zoo enclosure somewhere in southeast Asia, I believe. Unlike the enclosures we have here in the U.S., it’s the massive open expanse, and the feed isn’t a slab of steak through a door, but a live feeding. Meaning, they dump a live cow or goat in the middle of this field, peel out, and the – in this case – tigers jump all over it, giving them some semblance of a hunt.

It was in this particular video that they were fed in this way a single large cow who, after being dropped in this field, naturally tried to make a break for it. To humans, do you know how f***ing strong a cow is? A cow could level an average person without even meaning to. Well, four tigers swarm this ole gal and just one of them brings her to the ground with minimal – and I mean MINIMAL – effort. Three just start going to town, tearing into the soft bits, and the cow is…well, being loud about it. The fourth tiger is calmly watching its siblings fill their tummies when it decides to saunter over, grip the cow’s neck with its teeth, and snap it like a cracker.

Y’all, it mercy-killed that bovine with the same energy I use to take a sip of coffee. And that monster was the kind of thing I thought I could “K.O. if I had the chance, bro.”

Disgusting.

Anyway, another book with my name on it came out this month!
Bards & Sages Publishing has their “Society of Misfit Stories Presents…” vol.III issue out now on Amazon for those looking for a paperback, and for the e-readers among us, Smashwords is doing their thing and offering a 20% off discount through the end of the year if you use the code PC74V at checkout.
Look for my contribution to the collection, “High Noon,” which follows a Canadian kid who tries to hike the Pacific Crest Trail but gets…caught up as he takes on a mysterious guest.
And that’s kind of sweet.

Til next time, y’all.

Ants v. Cats – A Moral Dilemma

So, last time, I mentioned that I had a background project in the works that involved some of the most ridiculous math I’d ever done, right? Cool, well, some backstory.

Our current living situation is a little weird. Mandy (girlfriend extraordinaire) and I share a house with technically two other roommates and a gaggle of children. The children are present because, during weekdays, the house also operates as a nursery or daycare run by one of the aforementioned roommates. That meant that while I was home for a while between work seasons, there were nursery workers running around and the need for ice breakers arose. It’s an oldie but a goodie, meaning I resort to it often, but I enjoy asking, “If you could have one super power, what would it be?” I’m sure we’ve all given or answered that one once or twice in our own time. And it worked!

It also started a trend. So, every now and then while things were slow at the nursery (ie our house), I’d pop in with another dorky, speculative question. After a few of these, we arrived at a particularly juicy one: “If you had to choose, would you rather make all cats in the world the size of ants, or all ants in the world the size of cats?” I urge you to think on it too, in fact. Go on, I’ll wait…

…

Have your answer?

Sweet. Well, then you should also know that if you picked ants becoming the size of cats, you’re painfully, horrendously, ineffably, woefully, deliriously incorrect.

She, quite sensibly, choose to make all cats on the planet the size of ants. A sizeable loss for the cat-lovers among us, no doubt, but at the cost of saving the planet. Since I thought it was funny, I brought the question to Mandy, who said the above horrible answer AND tried to justify it. “Aww, but what will the anteaters eat?” was one point, that still thoroughly vexes me.

Anyway, I got so wrapped up in debating with her just how awful a sudden influx of cat-sized ants would be to the planet that I resorted to doing math. Like, actual hardcore arithmetic. Y’all, I wound up doing (and am still doing) more math in my free time than I ever have in my whole academic life. So, if I may, I’m going to present just some of the preliminary findings in my research and calculations.

As it turns out, there are an estimated 1 Quadrillion ants (1,000,000,000,000,000) on the planet right at this very moment, while there are a far more modest estimated 600 Million cats (600,000,000) at present. That means, there are about one and two-thirds millions times as many ants as there are cats on the planet right now. (# of Ants = # of Cats x 1,666,666.67)

The first thought I had when considering this is all we’re covering here today, which was: What would the seismic impact be of a sudden weight shift like that be? Like, forgetting ecological, topographical, geological, societal, and all the other -al’s, just the strain of all the suddenly added weight. What would that do to the planet’s tectonic plates?

The ultimate answer is: I’m not sure, but it would likely lead to some earthquakes in the short term; and I’d imagine, even more in the long term. As I’ve found, studies have been done on this sort of thing regarding shifting waters linked to rains and monsoon seasons, and have concluded that those seasonal occurrences lead to seismic activity (albeit small). For example, the study observes that monsoon season affects quake frequency around the Himalayas, so I did some math.

To calculate the weight of a monsoon, feasibly the amount of weight/pressure that reliably affects seismic activity, I took the given land area of India (3,287,263 sq. km), used the upper limit of expected rain fall over a monsoon season (300 mm), and ran those numbers through a rain fall calculator. The result showed a total deposit of 986,178,900,000,000 liters of water hitting the ground, which weighs roughly 21,741,523,121,299 lbs.

So, if the weight of a monsoon affects seismic activity to a noticeable degree, and we have that, then we know the amount of weight needed to affect seismic activity is somewhere around twenty-two trillion pounds (21,741,523,121,299 lbs).

Ants weigh anywhere between 1mg and 5mg, so we’ll call their average 3mg.

Cats, feral and domestic, on average, weigh between 8lbs and 10lbs. So we’ll call their average 9lbs.

For perspective, to have the equivalent to one pound, it takes 453,592mg; which means that the average cat weighs the same as 1,360,776 average ants. To put it another way, your average cat weighs x1,360,776 that of your average ant. To put it ANOTHER way, every ant that becomes the size of a cat means an increase in weigh of 136,077,600%

Finally, taking the estimates on how many ants there are and how many cats there are on the planet today, and knowing their average weights per individual ant or cat, we know that there are roughly 6,138,000,000 lbs of ants on the planet right now, and approximately 5,400,000,000 lbs of cats on the planet right now; meaning that if one were to make all the ants on the planet instantaneously the size of cats, that would mean a sudden addition of almost eight and a half Quadrillion pounds (8,352,436,950,000,000lbs) to the planet’s surface.

If it takes 22 Trillion pounds to start seismic activity, then to be clear, to be very frank…<ahem>…the sudden weight of ants WOULD SHIT ON THAT NUMBER.

8,352,436,950,000,000 / 21,737,365,862,331 = 384.24
[I shaved some decimals off of the result there because it does not at all matter. What matters is…]

The weight of ants after the switch is over three hundred and eighty TIMES what it takes to cause noticeable seismic activity; not to even mention that the weight change would be instantaneous rather than over the course of a month like with monsoon seasons. Trying to figure out THAT angle of the impact might mean learning how to calculate Newtons and Joules, which will take someone smarter than me to figure out, but let’s all safely assume that before the ants would even be able to tear our cities, infrastructure, and eco systems apart, their arrival alone would probably be equivalent to several million nuclear bombs…

…

I also have an anthology with Bards & Sages Publishing coming out this month, which is pretty rad. So stay tuned for that. It’s a story I’m pretty fond of.

Anyway, until next time. Ciao.

Update: A Little Nothing Placeholder

So, I’m working. A lot. Both in a day-job sense, and on something special for here. I’ve also got a number of fiction publications on the way that I’ll get to bug you about when they hit the market (which is rad), so stay tuned n’ such.

I’ve also been working on…calculations? Yeah, I think that’s the simplest and most accurate way to describe that. I’ll put up a preview soon, but in a nutshell: it’s the most bro-science, but legitimately hardcore math I’ve done in a long time.

In the meantime, a note: A lot of people think it’s annoying to talk about your diet, which is true. But mine’s, like, 50% hummus, and I think that’s interesting.

Anyway, keep it breezy. I’ll have more soon.

Pros and Cons – an analysis

The good thing about leaving a banana peel in your backpack over the weekend: Your backpack smells like banana.

The bad thing about leaving a banana peel in your backpack over the weekend: You have a banana peel in your backpack you forgot was there.

The ugly truth: This is how you learn lessons.

Keep being excellent to each other, everybody.

Random Thought

Mmm, yeah, we have time for this- oh! And to clarify, not “random” to me, exactly. What I’m about to thought-vomit on is a topic I’ve spent a weird amount of time fixating on every now and again; but I should be random to you.

If it’s not, then, well, that has certain…I guess, existential implications to it. Or we’re just on the same psychic wavelength, which I guess is always possible given how many people there are in the world- Anyway!

Do me a favor and look at your hands. Palms flat, fingers extended and straight. First off, take a moment to note any scars, callouses, wrinkles, and so forth. They’re all kind of a cool road map of your history, what you’ve done with these two little collections of meat tentacles.

But the reason we’re here today, look at your fingerprints. Not even actually caring about how unique they are to every person, have you ever noticed how, if you stare at them long enough, you can start to see the ways in which those tiny grooves are almost runic? Just, the texture of the skin on your palm and fingers has a pattern like stylish filigree. And to the smart guy out there who’s maybe googled “where fingerprints come from” or whatever: 1) I haven’t, and 2) that’s not the point, really.

At the end of the day, I like to think of the pattern’s presence as a little reminder that we’re all works of art, and that’s a trait we all share.

I guess, unless you’re a spy or something and have had your fingerprints smoothed over for work. But I think we should agree that’s pretty unique.

Anyway, something to chew on. Happy weekend, y’all.

Ciao.

Three Haiku

I wish I could say this was inspired by something more monumental, like a big life event or existential epiphany, but the truth is far simpler: The Ghost of Tsushima is just that great.

In every way, the game is an (A+) work of art. While the duels among cherry blossoms and battles amid flames are thrilling in their own right, I’m in it for picking flowers, petting foxes, writing poems. If it weren’t for all the swinging massive razors and duty-bound murder parties, I’d HELLUV been a samurai. But since those things are kind of a package deal…oh well.

May I present, some amateurish poetry…

Haiku
Pause, breath, and reflect.
Flower on a windy cliff,
breathe and be nourished.
Moon
A light amid dark
Silent, blossoming brilliance
Gate to the cosmos
Supper
Food in my belly
Warmth spreading through my body.
This is just the best

Ah, we have fun, don’t we?

Til’ next time, everyone.

Path of Paine

Wow, hi guys!

Can I lead up at the top that I appreciate you? Whoever you are, though I don’t know your name, your voice, your favorite food, or whether you prefer high-five’s or fist-bumps – I think you’re pretty great.

Out in California, right now we’re all collectively preparing for fire season. Mostly that means expecting power outages, preparing (at least mentally) go-bags we can quickly pack or grab in the event of an evacuation, and taking stock of what things are important enough to warrant inventory space and which might need to be committed to flames (worse case scenario, obviously).

Most of us have an idea of what we’d bring, and what that does is highlight what matters to us. It also usually highlights how many things of ours are…just things. And when that happens, it leads to a deeper appreciation for what we have. This could lead into a never-ending rant about how Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and how I think it suffers the incredible irony of being severely underappreciated whilst getting crushed under the stampeding boots of Christmas shoppers- BUT we’ll leave that for another day.

In a largely roundabout way, what I mean to center on is that it’s a common thing for most go-bags to include a small stack of a person’s favorite books. Now, while fiction is my first love, and my treasured collection of Witcher novels would need to be pried out of my cold, dead hands, another that would need to come with me is Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason.”

Enormously controversial in its day, I’m sure it could still be seen that way nowadays. In short, Paine describes it simply as his thoughts on religion. No wonder why then, in the mid-eighteenth century, the book landed him in some pretty hot water (and, actually, totally in jail). The second half of the book was written from prison, and it’s essentially his dissection of the Bible and the reasons why, in his view, it’s complete cockamamie nonsense.

I don’t love it for its second half. I love it for the first half.

The first sixty-eight pages (of my edition, anyway) are Paine outlining his own personal form of Deism – deism being a viewpoint that sees the universe as having a supreme, creating intelligence, but one that is separate from and does not intervene in the material world (Creation).

And while I want to, I’m not going to quote anything here – because I insist you read it yourself (found easily enough as a pdf right here —> Here!); and if you do, scroll down to pages thirty-three and thirty-four to get a taste of the root of his outlook.

In brief, he doesn’t see God necessarily as being a big bald-headed man in the clouds with a big floofy beard. Whatever name you want to give the force greater than understanding, more universal and common but as mysterious as consciousness itself, doesn’t matter so much.

But what is important is that the worship is in seeing. It’s in listening. In feeling. In smelling. In tasting. Taking in the world around us, trying to comprehend it, but above that – appreciating it.

Not to get too ‘woo-woo’ on us, but do you ever take a moment to recognize that you exist?

Just the fact that you, the awareness behind the eyes, inside the body, and behind the thoughts of whoever you are – are real. For no discernible point or purpose, from a mysterious some-say-unknowable origin, as a cosmic phenomenon…you exist. AND you’re able to contemplate that fact. Cogito, ergo sum, after all.

Worship is in appreciating what’s in front of you. What’s in you. What’s happened, or all the unknowable things that will happen. All of the heart-breakingly beautiful shapes and creatures on the planet, or those things our astronomers have shown us out in the cosmos.

It’s such a warping thought to know it’s so large that to even try comprehending the full breadth of it is unimaginable from the start.

Anyway, I’m feeling lost in the weeds now. We’re FULL rant. But…gah, things to think about right?

TL;DR – I appreciate you, things are awesome, good to think on that sometimes, woo-woo.

See you guys next time.

The Best Joke

Did you ever hear about the three-legged dog that walked into the saloon?

He looks at the bartender and cocks his hat to the side. Bartender asks, “what can I do ya for?”

The three-legged dog answers, “I’m lookin’ fer the man what shot my paw.”

FIN

Yup, that was pretty dumb, or so says the numbers. When I was first told it, I literally threw my head back laughing and literally slapped my knee. Ever since, whenever I’ve retold it, though, doesn’t seem to resonate the same way with others.

But, ah, such is the fate of puns, no?

Been a bit of an absentee lately, BUT it’s only because of good news. Recently sold not one but TWO pieces of fiction, and as well have been doing some work for a few local papers and magazines (solicited, to boot!); all while trying to get this book done and manage…well, life.

Beyond that, not a whole lot of noteworthy occurrences to share…

Um. Sat at a cafe a little while ago. Got yelled at by a homeless man and watched a kid take a whizz on his mom’s car. Bold, too. Just right out there in the parking lot.

Anyway, that’s my lot. See y’all soon.

Your Relation to the Infinite

I had a thought the other day that I’d like to share with you.
Yes. You. And the person to your right.
There isn’t anybody to your right? You wanna bet?
What about the guy behind you- BOO!

Okay, that got stupid.

But for real, I woke up the other morning and my first conscious thought was thus: “Hmm…I wonder how far it is, like, what’s the distance in vertical miles to outer space?”

I asked Amanda to look it up, and the answer is “roughly sixty-two miles” (62). I did a little bit more googling, and it turns out there’s a measurement called the Karman Line, which is the boundary from Earth’s sea level directly up 100 kilometers, where the planet’s boundary ends and suborbital space begins.

Ah…fascinating.

Then I had another thought.

I live in California, right? So I looked up the distance from me to Sacramento, the state’s capital. You know how far I am from the state’s capital of Sacramento, a place I’ve driven to and driven through plenty of times? About sixty-six miles (66).

…

What about Fresno?

Two hundred thirty-four miles (234).

Oh…my…God. Sacramento is further away than…hell, I’m FOUR TIMES closer to the dark, cold, IMPOSSIBLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE, INFINITE expanse of OUTER SPACE than Fresno, California.

Anyway, that realization about fits with 2020 so far. And it is my gift to you. Enjoy.

A Softball [Deductive] Pitch

I want to note that the tittle here is a little deceiving. Most of us probably recognize “a softball pitch” to be a phrase that roughly translates to “an easy problem to solve,” or “a simple obstacle to overcome.” Out of journalistic integrity (LOL), I looked up a few compilations of professional softball pitches…

What. The. F*ck?

That is such a criminally misused phrase, dude. Softball pitches ain’t only fast, but they’re ~~kind of scary~~ scary as sh*t.

So, while I move forward with this, let’s recognize that I’m using the expression “a softball pitch” in its classic meaning, but have since fully recognized the power in their real-world applications, cool?

This brief little story is about…
<dons a deerstalker cap>
…the power of deduction.

None of us should be strangers to giving, and I bet we all have had a least a few encounters sparing our change or extra dollars to needy folks we’ve encountered on the street. I do it both out of common human decency, and secretively as a little offering to the leylines of karma that I should never find myself in the same misfortune. Any one of us is only ever a few mistakes or unfortunate circumstances from being in the same position, and it’s good to bow our heads to that reality from time to time.

Now, that being the case, I think a few of us have also had encounters where those asking haven’t been…well, as needy as they let on, right? Which, let’s say up at the top, that that’s kind of a sh*tty thing to do, faking it, because you take away from and potentially spoil the perception of others who truly could benefit from others’ generosity.

Thankfully, the shysters in question this time were just in generous as to the clues they gave that they were up to no good.

My girlfriend Amanda and I had pulled up to a red light, and on the center divide between lanes stood a couple of folks holding signs. Amanda at times keeps a bag of loose bills cobbled together from the bills gotten by going to CoinMasters with spare change for just such occasions. So we see the couple and she asks for the bag.

I reach in the back, retrieve it, but as I’m opening it to retrieve bills, my Sherlock Sense starts tingling. There’s something about the way they’re speaking to each other (the window is still rolled up, so we see them, but can’t yet hear them), motioning, and strutting that stands out. This may have had nothing to do with anything, but they were also wearing identical jackets and backpacks; again, not strange or malicious in and of itself, but it caught my eye is all I’m saying. They also had…we’ll say “hallmark” acne around their mouths. Again, could be anything, people’s individual diets and biochemistries are all unique, but it raised an eyebrow.

Thankfully, the final softball pitch of a clue (remember what we talked about) came when we rolled down the window.

We gathered up ten dollars to pass out the window, but once it was down, it appeared we happened along at precisely the wrong time (or the right time, depending on how you feel about the encounter). We can hear the one guy singing to the woman with him, “Let’s get this money, hey-hey, so we can start feelin’ funny, hey-yeah!”

To this day, I strive to the level of confidence that guy had in that moment to openly admit, in SONG no less, that he was scamming for meth money. Needless to say, we rolled the window back up (a bit awkwardly now), and continued on our way, saving the bills for a more genuine case of need.

Please, please, PLEASE don’t take this in any way as a message to distrust those looking for charity by necessity – not at all condemning those in earnest need.

Instead, take it as the message it’s intended in that it relays my dope-ass deductive skills which sniffed out a couple of fakers. Did it get a bit easy there at the end? Yeah, maybe. But does that discount my awesome perception…?

Agree to disagree.

Ciao, y’all. See ya next time.