Victory Party

I have to tell you about what may be the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in my military career. When the exercise is over it is tradition for US and ROK officers to get together for a victory dinner where there is an excessive amount of drinking. The drink of choice is soju, a sweet vodka type stuff. The dinner was kimche and smoked duck and a variety of dipping sauces. The drinking started early with three shots of soju accompanied by toasts to the Marines and the Commandant and et cetera. Then more eating and drinking. Then more drinking. When the Korea 3-star General got up and made a final toast by downing an entire 500ml bottle of soju I realized that these Koreans are professional drinkers.

Next we get up from the table and head downstairs, I'm thinking to a bar of some sort. No, we end up in a 15x30 foot room with a curved couch and table in one half and an open area in the other. Its a private karaoke den.

Oh dear.

You've never seen weird until you've watched a drunk Korean 3-star General swaying about and waving his hand in the air while singing "Dancing Queen." The situation was surreal, with all the American officers sitting around the table drinking beer and the Korean Colonels and Generals out on the floor displaying a varying degree of English skills. I'm sitting back and singing along with everyone else (it's amazing how the lyrics of "Take Me Home, Country Road" just come back to you all of a sudden) but there's no way I'm getting up there. We go through "Surfin' USA" and "Enter Sandman" and really stumble our way through "Back in Black" because no one could sing it fast enough. I find it harder and harder to turn down the general who keeps pointing at me to take a turn. Finally I relent and choose "Born in the USA" by Springsteen. (The astute of you will know how that could be a problem.)

I got up and then I realized that the only way to sing this song is to scream it. So I did. Of course, two or three verses in I get to the part about killing the yellow man. Yikes. We get through the verse and the Koreans all keep singing and everything ends well. They even keep coming up to me afterward and patting me on the back and saying "Born in the USA!" So the night ended well and there was no international incident.

Now it's time to go home.

Joy and Dismay in .03 Seconds

It is tradition on Valentine's day around here that there is See's chocolate and helium filled balloons. In fact, it has become such a tradition that Daughter Number One has been talking about it all week, wondering what kind of balloon her daddy is going to get her. So when I showed up with a pink heart balloon she beamed with a radiant joy that could melt a Yeti's scowl. (Son Number Three got a monkey 'be mine' balloon but that's not important right now.) She showed it off to the rest of the family, drew little hearts and flowers on it, and took it everywhere with her for the rest of the morning. Then I'm upstairs watching the Olympics and I hear her little voice say, "I'm going to go outside with it!" Yes, the astute of you know what's about to happen and so did I.

I hear the door open. I hear laughter so joyous you could see the skip in her step with your mind's eye. Then, exactly .03 seconds later, I hear a wailing scream of the most heart wrenching magnitude in all of human history. It is long and drawn out and soul crushing, followed by heaving sobs and the plaintive words of ultimate loss, "My balloon!" The door closes. There is crying and more mournful wailing. It gets slowly louder as she comes up the stairs. I meet her on the landing and she falls into my arms. "I lost your balloon," she says between sobs. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Daddy, I lost your balloon. I tied it twice but it slipped off. I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm so sorry."

I pat her head and rock her back and forth a little. I tell her I love her, I'll always love her, and I'll never not love her.

Then we go to the dollar store and get another balloon.

How to Fall Off a Barn Roof

This one is surprisingly easy. The first thing you have to do is get an eight year old friend. We'll call him, oh, Kurt. It helps if you're also eight years old but that's not necessary. Then find a barn, preferably an old barn with attached side buildings used to store tack and channel calves through to get them into a trailer for auction. Make sure you can climb up a rickety wooden ladder and get up to the roof of one of the side buildings. The roof should be about twelve feet high.

Once you've secured all this preliminary equipment, get a small tree frog. The tree frog is really the critical part of this sequence of events. Don't skimp on the frog.

Next, take the frog and your friend Kurt up the ladder, walk out onto the roof and set the frog at the edge. The frog will likely do what it is that frogs do. If it doesn't, poke it in the rump with your finger. Lean forward to watch the frog fall.

(I know what you're thinking. But this is not quite the part about falling off the roof yet. Wait for it.)

Squeal with maniacal eight year old glee and swing down to the barnyard on a handy Douglas Fir branch that is perfectly positioned as a method of reaching the ground quickly and safely. Retrieve the frog.

Climb back up on the roof and repeat the process, only this time letting your friend Kurt push the frog. Squeal with glee. Retrieve the frog.

At this point, since it is clearly your turn to make the frog jump off the roof, you should ensure that you are the one to retrieve the frog. Failure to accomplish this simple task will inevitably lead to the following:

Kurt gets the frog and claims that he's going to take your turn. You don't want to believe him but since possession is nine tenths of the law you realize that you could very soon get screwed out of what is rightfully yours. You follow Kurt up onto the roof and see his happy face turn back to you and repeat that he's going to be the one to push the froggie off the roof and that he's apparently going to delight in intentionally stealing your turn. You explain in brief, eight year old language that you disagree with this course of action, but are powerless to do anything about it because you're watching Kurt run away from you across the roof. You chase him.

Here's where things get interesting. You watch Kurt turn his head and check where the edge of the roof is. He then turns back to resume taunting you while still running at a pretty good clip. You follow, still pleading your case but beginning to accept that as he gets closer to the edge it is more likely that he will, in fact, take your turn. At this point your heart begins breaking because you really, really wanted to push the froggie off the roof and Kurt has done stuff like this before so you're really at a loss for what to do and you begin to reevaluate your position in the universe and wonder how God could be so cruel.

Watch, dumbstruck, as Kurt runs right off the roof at full speed. Stop running and go to the edge to see Kurt sprawled out on the dirt, sucking in air for a pretty good cry if he could ever get it out. Swing down, using the quick and safe method described above, and stand helplessly as Kurt flops about like a dying fish. Run to go get the babysitter. Spend the next couple of hours in the Emergency Room, telling this same story to several different people.

And that's how to fall off a barn roof.

10 Things That Don't Suck Nearly As Bad As Eragon

1. Complicated dental procedures performed by drunk monkeys who've had their way with an unguarded espresso machine.

2. Chinese water torture.

3. Using a Black & Decker circular saw for a self-lobotomy while waiting for your wife to get out of Grocery Outlet. ("Just three things." Yeah, right.)

4. Spending all afternoon at the DMV.

5. Rachmaninov.

6. Accidentally chugging curdled milk straight from the carton.

7. FOX Reality Channel.

8. Hurrying past the kitchen table in your bare feet on a chilly Saturday morning and kicking your pinkie toe into the table leg at full force.

9. Recording the football game only to have the stupid DVR cut off the last few minutes because the stupid game went past its stupid scheduled time.

10. Windows Vista.

New Year's Resolutions I Have No Intention of Making Or Keeping

1. Get up an extra half hour earlier so I can do something that is only slightly more important than sleep.
2. Exercise any more than absolutely necessary.
3. Be nicer to loosely organized, hive based insects.
4. Stop 'using the Force' to find our ultimate driving destination.
5. Work towards World Peace; or for that matter, even a block watch program.
6. Anything else that might in the slightest bit inconvenience me.

How to Confirm That You Don't Know All That Much

One easy step: High School English.

So I'm like all about writing and stuff. Son Number One is working on his High School curriculum by correspondence. He's all, "Hey, Dad, what's a predicate?" And I'm all, "Dude! How should I know?" And he's like, "Well then what's the subject of this sentence?" So I go, "Subject is like a noun or something." So he gets all puzzly looking and points to some stupid rule. And I'm like, "Hey don't get all up in my face, man." And he's all, "Do you even know what you're talking about?" And then I'm all like up in the hizzy and ready to throw down. Then like dinner's totally ready so I can escape and hopefully not have to go through that again. I spent all that time ignoring my teachers in High School so that I wouldn't have to do this kind of thing.

Identifying the Middle of Nowhere: A Comparative Methodology

Method One: Define nowhere. It is typically a barren wasteland filled with unending rolling vistas of scrub trees and brown grass. If you find yourself driving through it you must keep a careful count of abandoned wellhouses and dirt roads. This is your track to the middle. When they thin out to four per mile you are getting close. There will also be a marked increase in beer cans, always domestic, and plastic grocery bags swirling in dust devils. Eventually you will be filled with a sense of impending dread and hopelessness. You have arrived.

Method Two: Look for a sign on the road that says 'Yakima, Washington.'

Writing Lessons From Son Number Three

Son Number Three gets attention in three ways. When I thought about it, all three can be adapted into a writing lesson. Let me count the ways:

1. Scream
2. Look adorable
3. Fill the diaper

My friend, all of these can be accomplished by your writing to make it get noticed as well. (However, if you find a way to do all three at once, you either need a Pulitzer or a therapist.)

When your writing screams it demands attention through sheer force of will. This implies a certain amount of emotion devoted to your story. Don't lollygag around, get to the heart of it and keep it up. Looking adorable is all about crafting a word, sentence, paragraph, or entire passage that is so mesmerizing it can't be ignored. It's the type of writing that must be worked at, to be sure, but mostly comes from a lightning strike of inspiration. And I've noticed that the more you're sitting at your computer the more likely these flashes are to be captured in copyrightable form. The third way is not what you think. (Although it may be, in which case I can't help you.) It's also my favorite style of writing. I should coin the phrase, Diaper Filled Writing or some such. This method is to present your readers with a dilemma that compels them to act. The action you're looking for is reading; reading that will solve the dilemma for them and give them the answer they're after and yet pose another question in a never ending string of filled diapers. And just like filled diapers, when you're writing the solution to one your protagonist should be filling another.

Or something like that.

Recipe For An Interesting New Year

Ingredients:

1 Unsuspecting Family
Raised Rent
1 Better House
4 Children
Several Unexpected Renovation Delays
Good Friends
3 Good Friend's Children
1 Dog
2 Moving Trucks
Random Assortment of Too Much Stuff
Storage Unit
21 Days of Freezing Weather

In a large bowl, add unsuspecting family and suddenly introduce raised rent. Beat to a froth. Add better house when unsuspecting family is stiff and holds its peaks. Sprinkle in 4 children, one at a time, and let them become familiar with the mixture. Begin adding unexpected renovation delays (reserving one) and mix well, then remove children slowly and place in oversized Ziploc bag with all 3 good friend's children. Set aside first bowl. Add dog to bag and shake well. Let both mixtures stand after folding in several days of freezing weather. While mixtures are firming up, take first moving truck and insert a handful of good friends and as much of the assortment of too much stuff as will fit. Repeat. (Optional: scatter many scoops of too much stuff into other locations and collect up later for finished product.) Place too much stuff into storage unit and bake at 25 degrees for 7 days, add last unexpected renovation delay and bake at slightly colder temperature for 7 more days. Take second moving truck and any remaining good friends (there will be much fewer this time, that is normal) and remove too much stuff from storage unit. Place directly in better house. Open bag and separate children and dog with a fork. Run first mixture through a sieve and remove unsuspecting famliy, reunite with children and insert in better house. Garnish with 2 more days of freezing weather. Serve chilled.

Writing Lessons From Gymboree

Today I made the mistake of going the the local mall and trying to return stuff that my wife had mail ordered from Gymboree. I was in good spirits, I had a box of neatly arranged stuff with all the receipts, and it wasn't too busy yet. This is like the times when you have a good amount of time ahead of you, your outline is pretty solid, and you can't wait to get down to writing. You feel in control and you know that good things are about to happen. So I wait a bit and set my box down, the very nice lady starts matching up items to lines on the receipts, and everything's going great. This is like the illusion that you're actually going to have a good time writing and everything is going to flow naturally from your fingertips. Next thing that happened was she asked for the credit card that the stuff had been purchased on. I reached for my wallet. She said it was an American Express. Odd, I thought, we seldom use our American Express. This is like the time when you sense that the paragraph you just wrote didn't quite say what you thought it should but you plunge ahead anyway. Then I hand her my American Express. She looks at it and says that it's not the same card and company policy states she can't return anything without it. The immediate flaming rage I feel is a lot like that helpless feeling that washes over you when you realize that you haven't got any chance of writing anything worthwhile at all and you might as well type 'all work and no play make Jack a dull boy' over and over and over again.

Moral of the story: Don't go to Gymboree under any circumstances.

It's Hard to Be A Cubs Fan

Since I like baseball so much I just had to steal this from another blog. More writing stuff will come later, probably tomorrow after I run into some kind of difficulty.

Twenty major events that have occurred since the Chicago Cubs last laid claim to a World Series championship:
1. Radio was invented; Cubs fans got to hear their team lose.
2. TV was invented; Cubs fans got to see their team lose.
3. Baseball added 14 teams; Cubs fans get to see and hear their team lose to more clubs.
4. George Burns celebrated his 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th and 100th birthdays.
5. Haley's comet passed Earth twice.
6. Harry Caray was born....and died. Incredible, but true.
7. The NBA, NHL and NFL were formed, and Chicago teams won championships in each league.
8. Man landed on the moon, as have several home runs given up by Cubs pitchers.
9. Sixteen U.S. presidents were elected.
10. There were 11 amendments added to the Constitution.
11. Prohibition was created and repealed.
12. The Titanic was built, set sail, sank, was discovered and became the subject of major motion pictures, the latest giving Cubs fans hope that something that finishes on the bottom can come out on top.
13. Wrigley Field was built and becomes the oldest park in the National League.
14. Flag poles were erected on Wrigley Field roof to hold all of the team's future World Series pennants. Those flag poles have since rusted and been taken down.
15. A combination of 40 Summer and Winter Olympics have been held.
16. Thirteen baseball players have won the Triple Crown; several thanked Cubs pitchers.
17. Bell-bottoms came in style, went out of style and came back in.
18. The Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox and the Florida Marlins have all won the World Series.
19. The Cubs played 14,153 regular-season games; they lost the majority of them.
20. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oklahoma and New Mexico were added to the Union.

Why Debate is a Good Thing

I often get into debates over silly things like
movies, books, or torture. I suppose I could avoid
these situations if I really wanted to but I don't.
They make me a better writer. I shall pontificate.

Debate is an exchange of ideas with the intention of
persuasion. It is not a simple conversation; there is
a presumption that right and wrong will figure into
the final assessment. There will be a winner and a
loser. (Unless you're arguing about abortion, then
there will be only losers.) Therefore, you must bring
your A game. You have to clearly state your position
and define how it differs with your opponent. Then
you have to support your position with facts and
reason while attacking the enemy's (sorry,
'opponent's') facts and reason.

Some people can do this well and some cannot. I've
found that when people start getting emotional about
an issue the debate portion of the evening is usually
over. Typically this is when I start talking about
football. This might also be because I have the
amazing gift of taking someone else's facts and
reasoning and making it say what I want instead of
what they want. (Why? Because sometimes I can't
dazzle 'em with brilliance.)

So how does this relate to writing? Fiction is much
like a debate. You are lying and trying to make it
sound convincing. Unless you're writing a sweeping
historical romance you only have a certain amount of
time to make your point and hook your reader. As a
writer, you should train yourself to quickly sort out
what is relevant, what is fluff, and how you can
quickly present it. Debate will help you with this.

It's also fun at parties.

Babies and Blogs

Since the two newest things in my life are this blog and our fourth child, a friend recently asked how babies and blogs were similar. After a few minutes of thinking I came up with this Top Ten List:

10. They both cry a lot and demand attention.
9. They're both going to grow up, and when they do, boy is it going to cost you.
8. Both have creators that sit around and lovingly admire them.
7. Both have audiences that smile politely but inside are thinking, "My God, that's an ugly baby."
6. Their audiences are forced to view them no matter how busy they are and it's quite rude to turn down an invitation.
5. They both were derived from previous activities (oddly both stressful and enjoyable.)
4. If you don't save them often, they'll crash and you'll lose everything.
3. Leave an uncapped marking pen laying about and things can get out of control.
2. Their brothers and sisters try to cooperate but when you get right down to it, they're all competitors.
1. Every now and again, something shows up on them that really stinks.