February 22, 2009

Natalyn loves to go on walks with Lexie and show her the flowers.

There are some really pretty purple flowers in bloom here.

Natalyn took this photo, I thought it was great work for a 2 days shy of 5 year old.

David and Dallin looking at a lizard.

The lizard David and Dallin were watching.

What a cute little cub! J-cub!

Quartzsite has some very interesting shops.

A nice vendor gave each of the kids a Hot Wheels car.

We stopped to see the Hi Jolly Monument.

Jacob loves the pattern blocks, we only give him the big ones because he is still at the age he can't tell a pattern block from a cheese burger.

If you chance to meet a frown do not let it stay ...

Quickly turn it upside down and smile that frown away!

Work

I am getting really excited about progress on the Spelling Castle game. This week I got through a lot of code I had been putting off. The game is taking really great shape. It will not be the fanciest game ever made by far, but the game is turning out better than my original target. Saturday, I had a flash of excitement remembering my excitement last year when I started the venture and realizing that even though I have blown the schedule and the budget for the project, I may actually come out with a marketable product that could overcome the schedule and fiscal over-runs. Maybe not, but I do know that I am going to be very happy with my work and in some ways that makes everything worth it on its own.

I have been beating myself up a lot over the last 6 months over how slow I have been with the development. I know it is a waste of energy, but my mind does the attacks anyway. I have been working a lot lately to reframe my thinking into the present and looking forward, but not too far forward. If I look too far back I get discouraged, if I look to far ahead I get discouraged, but keeping my overall target in mind and taking the steps in front of me one at a time I am finding work very enjoyable.

I feel a lot of pressure to be successful in my venture, if for no other reason than I am spoiled right now in terms of my work environment. The thought of going back to a work environment that doesn't offer three meals a day with the family and a window office in any part of the continent I choose, doesn't hold much appeal for me. With that said, if I need go back to cube jail to put meals on the table, I will; I just hope I don't have to. The other side of the coin is. it really is a lot more fun to gripe about a manager for his screw-ups when he doesn't look back at you in the mirror, and of course having income in the budget as well as expenses is always an alluring idea.

Half Baked Conspiracy Theory

I mentioned when I wrote 25 things about myself earlier that I entertain, but do not develop or pursue conspiracy theories. This week I have decided to share one of my raw and undeveloped theories. Calling it a theory is probably an abuse of the word. Let's rather call it a collection of ideas that might be facts. I am not very bright with respect to the way the world works so this is extremely simple. Even though it is simple, it gives a bit for the mind to chew on, well, at least my mind. OK, here are my collection of "facts." 1) The war in Iraq has cost about 735 Billion dollars to date. 2) The US has about 1 trillion (1000 billion) dollars in public debt. 3) China holds 2 trillion dollars in foreign treasury bonds 4) China is the largest foreign holder of US bonds.

Am I putting the dots together incorrectly if I conclude that the invasion of Iraq was funded by China? Could be, that's what makes it a half-baked theory. I am not sure I even have my facts correct. With that said, if I were playing a game of, "Let's see if I can dominate the world" and one player wanted to borrow money from me to attack another player, from a strategic point of view I would be pretty quick to loan the money, because I would be gaining power on two players at once. The kind of point in the game that I realize I am starting to win because everyone else on the board is starting to lose their grip on the game. If I could devalue my currency to tip a trade balance in my favor while I was at it, all the better. I am not saying anything negative about China. I am just throwing out that China and Iraq may have a connection I hadn't previously considered. Sometimes I wish I hadn't ever read, "Animal Farm" or "1984." On the other hand, I find a lot of in-sight in the books.

As far as my assertion that there are people lusting to dominate the world, I feel pretty comfortable with the knowledge I gain in the history classes, I slept through during my school years, that there have been such people in the world before. I don't think I am making a really large jump in guessing we may have one or two of those type of people crawling about on our little rock now.

OK, that's about the end of my energy for conspiracy theory. I may throw out some ideas about North Korea in the future. Well, one right now... Something I hadn't put together until much after I had lived in South Korea and done some reading about the Korean War, was that the Korean War had as much or more to do with a war between the US and China than it did to do with a war between North and South Korea. Again, working on partial facts with a likely misunderstanding about the facts I am stating, but trying to put another puzzle piece on the table to see if any of the colors and shapes match well with any of the others. In the end, I am not sure how much it matters. I have trouble knowing what I would do with a pieced together puzzle, I just find it interesting to look at every now and then.