I have been doing this book a week challenge where I attempt to read a book every week of the year. I was on track until a pipe burst in my house flooding the entire house displacing me for over a month. Once back in my repaired house I left to Las Vegas for business, on the trip my laptop was stolen, I was to say the least lost. I mean really lost. I could have presumably lost anything really as far as tangible items but not my laptop, that is personal. I’ve gone without many tangible items in my life, especially in my childhood but the one I hold dear is my laptop.

In my laptop bag was my next favorite tangible object of tech infatuation, my Nook ebook reader. I was kicking ass reading books on it, flying through books in just a day or two. I was not only on track but I was ahead, like a few weeks ahead. I added a few magazines and newspapers, not including my RSS feeds I would read daily. But when it was stolen along with my laptop, my life stopped. Not literally, or even professionally but emotionally I believe I truly felt slighted. Insurance was going to cover everything so it wasn’t even a violation of someone having my stuff, all of my data was backed up and I take the proper security steps to protect my data. I guess I just felt lost without my daily attachment to technology.

My reading came to a halt. Weeks past, I shrugged, telling myself I didn’t care anymore, that it was impossible to attain anyway. My love for books didn’t stay dormant long though. While almost every weekend stopping by a garage sale, for the possibility that I might find a first edition Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment or an early 1800 Homer The Odyssey, I fell back in love with books when I found an 1855 Complete Works of Shakespeare with every owners name and date written on the first page. While finding writing in an aged book is incredibly bad for resale value it intrigued me and grabbed me. This one was special, yes, I knew when I bought it I was buying it for more than it was worth for a quick resale but Shakespeare is something else.

Not that I somehow have a hard-on for Shakespeare like a lot of my English major friends or friends who feel they have to say that shit to impress others. I like Shakespeare because in high school it was Shakespeare that first ignited my passion for the written word. I was not the most studious of my class but when I read Shakespeare I knew there was something worth paying attention to here. So when I laid my eyes on a 1855 Complete Works, I knew it had to be mine. When I got home and cracked it open I was lost. All my worries of personal and professional life came to a halt, I forgot where I was and who was around me. I sat there for thirty minutes before I rejoined the time continuum.

So, my love for books is the best and worst for me, in one way I want to collect and never let them out of my sight to never be touched but on the other hand I want to read them, even the classics for which I own their cheaper, more current, paperback version. There is something about opening a book that is 155 years old, in a romantic way I guess I feel connected to others who have the exact same affection for the writer. It was this book that helped me stand back up and get back into the game with the Book A Week Challenge.

I’m twelve weeks behind but I am determined to not only finish this challenge but to push ahead and finish with more than fifty-two books by the end of the year. The challenge is hard some days, other days I’m blowing through 100+ pages easy; my goal is to keep my head down push forward.

I’ve been writing quite a bit for clients but have had writers block for my personal writings for a while now. So I sat down and just began typing, it’s not much, it doesn’t match the usual content of my blog. As small of a step it is, it’s a step forward. Enjoy and as always feel free to comment or tell me how you break writers block.

There are times in my life where my world slows as I commit the most simplistic action like setting my keys down when I walk in the door from a long day. As I pause, my mind focuses and aligns my priorities, flashes of those who are most important. It’s inside those moments, those tiny shreds of time that stretch for what seems like minutes that I find peace. It’s those moments where I can replay my favorite times with those whom I love. In that rigid gap of time I am reminded that no matter how long or hard of a day I have, there are those who will always stand beside me, regardless of position, because they love me. It’s in those moments where I picture my wife, how lovely and happy. Someone who can make me laugh even when life seems unfair and arduous. Those moments surround me, I appreciate those moments. It’s there that the day’s worries and burdens and obligations fall off my shoulders, freeing me.

Consciously, I know this won’t last forever or even more than a second but as time slows, actions and colors blur, creating for a moment the best place I’ve been all day. How selfish I wish it could last longer but accountability is staring me in the face recalling my obligations, telling me it’s time to move on. Time relinquishes to the commitments of the day and as quickly as it began it vanishes leaving me only with appreciation. Appreciation for the sweet, precious time I have with those I love. Time is my friend and my enemy. It gives me youth, it brings me old age. Time grants me hope, it befalls disappointment. Time inspires creativity and builds barriers. Time paints words, it blotches words. And now that is what I am without.

Really? Again?

I thought we talked about this, you know about how much you destroy people’s dreams of what a good show should be. Now this is in no way meant to be a review of television but seriously someone must stop these people, not the show, just the people.

What’s The Big Deal?

It may seem that the show is drab, pedestrian, esoteric at times but the foolishness must stop. It was painful to watch video played on a screen: run, stop, and run again from the same position as time had obviously moved forward on a surveillance mission, then to see that same footage later in the show as a on-scene location shot made me want to drown myself.

Then KITT has all these feelings, office staff go into the field, three of the bad guys look alike, they stole missiles from Knight Industries, they can’t track them…….I was searching for sharp object, heck, I would have settled for blunt objects to put myself out of that misery.

But Wait I Forgot!

The opening scene, if you had any respect for this franchise you might want to stop reading or you may form a healthy addiction from sheer distraught and angst. There is an intruder at Knight Industries, near where KITT is located, the scene is dark, you see the feet of the intruder for a second, cut to Michael who knows the intruder is present, cut to more feet, cut back to Michael turning a corner, slouching behind a tool cart, cut to more feet (ugly boots by the way), cut to tool cart moving and creaking in a complete silent room, cut to feet moving down the stairs (we get it, there’s bloody feet there and there going to attempt to kill Michael or the emotional, morose KITT), cut to wide squirt guns spray crossing over KITT.

Seriously!?!?!?!?

No one at this seemingly fictional government contracted business has any friends to see, family to meet, bar to drink at, crimes to commit. Nothing! No, of course they would rather frolic around Knight Industries playing with squirt guns around the most advanced quasi-military war-machine turned emo-punk. I’m not saying we should see something as serious as West Wing or The Unit but a little respect for subject and the franchise would be nice.

Whatever!

Oh Knight Rider, you and I have quite a checkered past but I like a mistreated lover come back because I know it’ll get better, you can change right? I hope you all learn something from this!

Two-Cent Lesson

• When it feels wrong, it is, just stop and hire writers
• If you’re going to act like you have a badass war-machine, have one

Oh my god!!! Do you we need another video player? I swear, everyday I get up and find myself on Google Reader I keep reading about some blow hard video player company getting funded again and again. Do we really need 50 different video players that are innovative offering the same type of service that you can build yourself? Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing video players out and one or two that make me salivate but really, when is enough, enough?

I don’t know how many calls I get every week asking me to integrate some new player into our site and how much better it is than what we have and if we go through them then we will make money because of advertising. You know, that was a concept I never thought about, advertising on my content, through my player. I do already and I don’t have to give them 70% of the revenue and then have them scrub the numbers therefore further diminishing my possibilities of profits.

If you’re going to make a player, make a player, don’t make some sorry excuse to sell more advertising. Are you an advertising company or a video player company? You can’t do everything, god knows Yahoo tries to do that.

Look, if you’re going to make yet another, miserable video player, here’s a few tips you should remember:

1. Make it look like every other one available (just change the color)
2. Tell me it goes full screen (no one’s done that)
3. Tell me you’ve engineered a new codec (no one has seen that before)
4. Tell me it’ll play full HD at 800kbps
5. Integrate a playlist (I don’t like to watch videos in order)
6. Put your logo on it (Nothing like you branding my content and site with your player that I pay you for)
7. Put Google AdSense on it and keep 70% or more of the profits (I don’t like to make money)
8. Tell me video on the net is the next big thing (I forgot what industry I was in)