Having recently come into some free time, I chose to spend it on something that I have not in a very long time. Bad movies.

Now, the movies that I am watching are only bad in the sense that most of them would be despised by any audience today. The movies I am watching are all Kung Fu movies from China dating from the 1960′s, 70′s, and 80′s.

The dubbing is terrible, there are no subtitles, and the plots are still in China under a jar of wine somewhere.

My attraction to these films is completely tied to my enjoyment of martial arts when I was younger and the fond memories I have of waking up early on Saturday and making sure to stop watching cartoons at noon to watch Kung Fu Theatre. Ah, the memories of a happy childhood.  Thank you, Mom.

Bad as the movies are, I still find myself amazed at the sheer athleticism displayed by the actors. Yes, the fantastic leaps and other wire work is cool but that doesn’t diminish the skill involved.

Lastly, one of the endearing things for me is the slapstick that exists in many of these films. For example, I am currently watching a badly made up statue that looks much like the IO tower guardian in the original Tron with dirt all over him, try to kill a clueless guy while drinking food and wine offerings left by the clueless guy.

It’s silly, maybe even stupid, but it pleases me.

Isn’t that why we watch movies in the first place?

I have spoken at some length about my family.  They are truly wonderful and a source of much of my joy in life.  Adding to that are my friends who enrich my life with perspective and the occasional knock-down-drag-out conversation ending with, “I can’t believe you are really that stubborn.” [Please note that absence of an admission of error in that statement.]

Acknowledging that I am truly blessed by the rich associations that I have, I wish to move on to a thing for which I am thankful.

Caffeine.

Ah, yes, my intrepid friend who helps me battle the urge to be idle.  The magic molecule of twitch.  My thoughts are drawn to you today as I have been experiencing a bit of the down side of she for whom I am most thankful.

My wife has had bronchitis since last Wednesday.  In all seriousness, this truly sucks for her.  She can go about 30-90 minutes without having a full on, “Hey, is that my spleen?”, coughing fit that lasts anywhere from 10 seconds to a couple of minutes.  Very few things will disturb my slumber but when my wife is in pain, it wakes me right up.

In short, I haven’t been sleeping too much lately.

Forward to last night and between the jacked up sleep schedule that four days off of work with a sick wife gets you and taking the kids to school, I ended up with a little over three hours of chopped up sleep last night.  Oh, and I HAD TO GO TO WORK!

“It’s OK,” I think, “I can take the Stay Awake I keep in my desk!”

Now, for those of you playing the home game, please pay careful attention to the box.  Yes, campers, you read it right, 200mg.  In the past, when I have taken this, I have needed to push myself after a good nights rest.  Not, repeat, NOT after having just spent four days on the newborn sleep cycle concluded with a three hour romp for good measure.

Needless to say, I was, and remain, a bit loopy.

So, at approximately 1100, I downed the first tablet of twitch.  At 1130,  my arms began to tingle a bit and I could tell that it was really beginning to work when I couldn’t shut up between belching liquid inferno.

“Food!  Must have food to quench the burning!”

For those of you having trouble keeping up, caffeine and sugar are a pretty good combination because the sugar is rapidly consumed by the twitching which brings the consumer, hereafter referred to as TttTwITCH, back down as there is no more energy to consume.  Unfortunately for TttTwITCH’s coworkers, he has brought protein foods to work, ensuring a long-lasting low burn of calories so that the entire office may suffer at his hands.

LONGLIVECAFFEINE!

Not quite capable of putting these facts together, TttTwITCH decided that he was running out of juice around 1400 and had a meeting that he needed to be alert for.

Engage little-yellow-thunder the second.

It’s about ten to midnight now and I think I have managed to force two yawns since I came home at 1630.  You see, at 1630, I felt like I was going to fall asleep standing up.

At 1730, I had dinner.

At 1745, TttTwITCH was back in the house.

That my wife resisted crushing my skull tonight is a tribute to her patience.

And that’s why I love her and am thankful for her above all other blessings.

With that in mind, I want to address the volume of discontent to be found on the Internet.  I am amazed at the amount of discussion on the ills of society to be found in the blogosphere and other Internet sources.  It is amazing to me how so many people can be concerned about the ills of society and only contribute complaints.  I suppose this is a natural outgrowth of our increasingly self-centered society but it distresses me greatly.

So, here’s the point.  If you are in a position where you expend energy on grousing about a situation, focus on a way to fix it.  Don’t try to solve world hunger, just go out of your way to feed some one.  Volunteer in a soup kitchen.  Take a homeless guy a plate of food from your last dinner.

In short, DO something.

Something constructive.

If you complain about the ills of society, yet refuse to engage in repairs, you are a hypocrite.

Do not be offended.  We all wear the hypocrites hat from time to time.  Just go be a non-hypocrite.  If you choose to complain about being called a hypocrite, it does not fix the condition, it just makes you a disagreeable hypocrite.  And, let’s be honest, we’re just adding adjectives at this point, you should just get busy and work on fixing the problem.

For those of you that believe the only way to fix things is with money, you are missing the point.  The biggest impacts I have seen on the lives of young men I have had the opportunity to work with comes from the little things.  Sitting down to play a game of chess, talk about music, talk about the weather or even  playing baseball under a full moon!

Nothing shows someone their value more than giving them time.

I have to remind myself what a choice blessing it is that I have found something that both allows me to make a difference and have a good time.

I hope everyone can find something similar.

A big thanks to my benefactor for leaving it in place!

When last we met our intrepid adventurer, he had spun a tale of ambiguity and things that come forth from the mouth of babes.

As we approach nine months of silence, we find a number of new items consuming our subject.

First, as always, my family.  There has been quite a bit of turmoil and joy at the same time in my family this year.  So far, it has seen a large amount of strife with my father, followed by an awkward reconciliation [which has worked out very well, if not slowly], my wife being diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, my step mother undergoing treatment for T-Cell Lymphoma [again] and the passing of two great people, my Aunt Alice and Uncle Albert.

Second, I have started back to school.  I want to finish my degree.  Of all the things I have not completed, this is the one thing that keeps nagging me.  I sure could use to save the money and I seriously doubt that a degree will affect my career. That said, it will be nice to finalize this and to get it done in Information Assurance and Security is just icing on the cake [this was not an option when I was going to school before].

Finally, surfing is still a large part of my life.  I love it.  It really helps me cope with the day to day drudgery of things.  I laugh more easily, find myself less flustered and all around enjoy spending time in the water.  The buddies that I have made as a side effect surfing have been great.  If you ever hear me sounding like the below, please feel free to club me.

I must admit that it feels odd to not be evangelizing something or having a specific topic.

Maybe next time. Hopefully it won’t be another nine months.

No, really.  I must have something wired backwards in my head.

My internal dialogue goes something like this:

“Oh, look.  That’s a fire.”

“I bet it’s hot.”

“Oh, I doubt it’s nearly as hot as that OTHER fire we saw the other day.”

“You think so, eh?  How could we test that out?”

“I’d just stick my hand in there.  To make it scientific, count the number of singed hairs in a two second exposure.”

“Right!”

I suppose writing about it only puts me into the raving lunatic camp.

*sigh*

At the end of the day, I suppose the really marvelous thing is that people still come to me for advice with fire.

“Hey.  Nice fire there.  How hot do you think it is?”

“S’not that hot.  Look, here.  You can just barely make out the blisters forming under the blackened skin….!”