There’s this other fear inside me that says I should give myself more time. My life post-Navy has only just started. My life in New York City has only just started. Why should I be so worried that it’s off on the wrong path so quickly? Give it time and see where destiny takes me!

The problem is I don’t believe in luck or destiny. I do believe there is a known future and I believe God has a plan ironed out. I don’t believe my choices are beyond my control because that “Master Plan” is unknown to me. As for luck, that’s just something people use to sound modest or make excuses.

I am not afraid to dream big. I am ambitious enough to see myself writing a national bestseller or landing the ultimate dream job. I know I am capable of it. I’m not just saying that the way a mother tells her child “You can do anything you set your mind to!” I say that like someone who means it. I do not want to be mediocre, and I will never be satisfied with a static life.

When I look at my life and see the steps I’m taking I realize certain things just don’t add up. Joining the Navy was a right step. At the time it was a step toward turning my life around. Staying in, even re-enlisting, was also the right step. Even if I was unhappy, and even if I complained about it on Facebook quite often, it was the right step. Going to college is also important, and that’s a step I’m living out right now. However, these are big things. The big things are always easy. They’re obvious and they tend to scream at me. And until now, the big steps were the most important. Now I need to focus on the little things.

Maybe calling them “little things” is unjust, but that is how we see them. Maybe it is pretentious and more than a little presumptuous of me to think of these little things as catastrophic to my future. After all, my life is taking a positive turn, and I can see myself on a positive track. But I can see my dreams. I can see where I want to be, and I can analyze where my current activities are taking me. The two paths aren’t aligned.

That’s the key. That’s what frustrates me. I know who I should be. I know the person I want to be. And I know what I need to get there, but I’m not doing it! Why am I not being the person I want to be? Why do I spend so much time thinking about these things before I act on them?

I don’t know the whole answer, but part of that answer is the steps I need to take don’t feel natural. They aren’t easy, certainly, but more than that I feel a wall of resistance against doing them. My mind boils over with anger and frustration when I try to come to grips with this thought. Not only is it hard to say but it’s hard to write about this because my thoughts become jumbled in the emotions, but I think I’ve been pretty clear here.

And I’ve kept it short. That’s a plus. Sometimes when I’m writing these things I think about the length. I think there’s no way I could’ve properly expressed myself in under 1,000 words. I have at least that many words flowing through my mind at any given second. Still, the simplest writing is usually the best, and if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Also, these aren’t in order. I’m just thinking of them as I go along.

1. Get my girlfriend involved.

I need help to do these things. I need people holding me accountable. And right now the only person that has regular contact with me in my life is Cathia. She’s the only person I even know on this side of the country.

2. Start doing things I’m too lazy to do.

There’s a lot of stuff that isn’t really important because it can be put off. I need to stop putting that stuff off because I still worry about it. If I get it done then I can worry about other things. This would include stuff like taxes or applying for unemployment.

3. Read more.

I have a lot of books I’ve never read. I have books I’ve always planned to read and never got around to it. I’ve got books I started to read and got bored with. I need to read all of them. And if I finish, I need to get a library card.

4. Stop going home at night.

Why should I bother going home at night? I’m doing this typing from my iPad. If I go home, all I end up doing is sitting in my bed playing a video game or watching Netflix or any other number of things. I need to stay at school after class is over or find a place to go in the afternoons. If I ever get involved with a group or community or project, maybe this won’t be such a big problem.

5. Take some free papers and find some stuff to do.

I ignore stuff I don’t care about. I plan every moment of my day so I know where I need to be and when I need to be there. I also tend not to do new things because I don’t like doing them. Every day on my way to school there are people in the train station offering a free paper. I automatically reject this idea because I think nothing in a free paper could possibly be any good. I’m going to start taking that paper now and see if it is any good. See if there’s something I can be a part of in that paper.

6. Meet new people.

I seriously have no idea how to do this. I guess if I get involved in a group or something this will happen, but other than that I’m at a loss.

7. Give up on some technologies.

This sort of goes along with “Don’t go home” but I really just need to stop doing some of these things I like to do. I need to stop listening to music and start listening to the world. I need to stop watching hours of Netflix and start living my own story.

8. Write. Write. Write. Then Publish It. Then Write Some More.

I already write a lot. A lot more than I let on. Now I need to write, publish it on my blog, and then write something else. I need to stop being embarrassed by my writing. I know it’s probably not great or maybe no one will read it, but so what? I just need to get it out there. For whatever good that does me.

9. Stop being so negative.

This one will take a while.

10. Go somewhere new.

Maybe just by starting to go to a new restaurant or interesting store on my path to school I can start finding new things to do.

I mean, I started in a small town in Fishers, Indiana and as of now I’ve ended in New York City. In between I’ve gone everywhere from Japan to Hong Kong to Greece and London. Just in the United States, I’ve lived in Seattle and San Diego in addition to Indiana and New York. I up and joined the Navy for seemingly no reason, just to put some purpose into my life. After the Navy, I moved to New York City for much the same reason.

The problem is, this is just travel. There’s no story there. I’m not living a good story. I’m just moving around a lot. I’m not creating any conflict to overcome. In fact, it doesn’t matter where I live I tend to do the same things. I spend a lot of time in coffee shops, especially Starbuck’s, and I watch a lot of television. What sort of progress is it if I can go from one side of the country to the other just to end up at Starbuck’s?

And what have I accomplished in that time? How have I, as a person, changed? I get really frustrated with the status quo, but I also find myself getting caught up in it. I don’t develop new relationships. I avoid people. I just am not a big fan of people anymore. They anger me most of the time. Am I so arrogant to think I can write a good story or have people read my stories when I don’t even like the people who might become my audience?

My girlfriend is a woman of conflict. She’s living a good story. She’s living such a good story I’ve often thought of ending the work on my story and writing hers. I still might some day, but the truth is I just covet the life she lives because it looks better on paper. She’s overcome so many obstacles. I feel like my life has been handed to me on a silver platter.

I’ve decided instead of writing her story, I want her story to be inspirational to mine. I need to learn to get out and do more. I need to find friends I can grow close to and live stories with. She knows people all over the world and keeps in touch with them. She writes some 200 Christmas cards every year. I don’t write any. I have friends in different parts of the planet, but except for the occasional Facebook message I don’t talk to any of them. I need to change that. I also need to start making new friends.

I need conflict. I have some conflicts. I worry about maintaining my income. It’s hard to do that without a job. It’s hard to get a job when you’re only putting in a small amount of effort, too.

I worry about establishing myself as a writer. Turns out, no one gives a crap about my writings. I don’t even care about my writings. Most of what I write disappears into the nether of DropBox or My Documents. But I’m never going to make a name for myself as a writer if I don’t write something and then put it somewhere people will see it. Even if it’s embarassing. Heck, even if it’s not completely true. I find a lot of what I write is dictated by my emotions at the time of writing, and sometimes I say things that aren’t completely true. Doesn’t matter though! I just need to start putting it out there, even if it means explaining my emotions later.

I need to find a purpose to living. I’m not even exactly sure what I mean by that, but I know it applies to a lot of parts of my life.

For example, I want to be a writer but I’m not really sure what kind. I thought when I made the decision to be a writer that I’d fall into the genre I wanted to write. I tried writing short stories and that didn’t work. I tried writing science fiction and didn’t seem to have a knack for it. I decided to write a memoir and, well, here we are now. I’ve thought because of my journalism experience that journalism would be a fun and profitable way to go. Turns out that’s a lot harder than it sounds, too. I don’t want to give up on journalism, but I really don’t think I’m a Pulitzer Prize-winning kind of journalist.

That’s another thing. I’m not a revolutionary. I don’t have any ideas to change the world. I’m not a trendsetter. I won’t create the next Facebook or Twitter. I’ll just join it and post like everyone else. But it’s really frustrating to me when I look up articles on networking or getting started in a new job and they talk about promoting your unique ideas and creating a special profile for yourself. I don’t have that. I’m just a guy with a few words, and I don’t think I have anything to say that hasn’t been said before. I just want to say it in a new way. I want to put my own personal spin on the words that have been said a hundred times before. Why can’t that get the same promotion?

Let’s go back to finding a better purpose. Right now I am going to school. That’s all. I don’t have a job. I go to school, come home from school, write a few words about what I think is wrong with my life, turn on Netflix and go to bed. I wake up and do it all over again. The only time this changes is on the days I don’t have school. On those days I skip the “go to school, come home from school” steps, but other than that it pretty much remains the same. While this might sound fantastic to some people, it’s really not. I have trouble even performing some of the basic requirements of life. Like right now I could go do my taxes or be looking for a job. And because I’m not doing these things I’m not living the life I WANT and SHOULD live.

I know I’ve got problems, but I’ve always consoled myself with the fact that other people have worse problems. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I don’t know if I’d call it laziness or procrastination or if maybe those two things are the same, but whatever it is it needs to stop.

Starting tomorrow I’m going to wake up to a better story. Probably not, but I’m going to try. I’m going to start looking for conflict. Something that pushes me out of my comfort zone. I’m going to look for new relationships. New friendships. New people to engage with. It’s New York City, after all, there’s got to be at least one person I don’t mind talking to.

And I’m going to start living a better story. This is the middle section of the story of my life. A lot of world building and historical details. The only thing that’s going to keep it moving is some action. Real action. I want something that’ll let the climax of my story seem more powerful than it’s shaping out to be.

A picture of Louis C.K. from Wikipedia

Louis C.K. is a standup comedian. He's not funny. Well, he's ok. He's not fantastic, but every now and then I'll chuckle at his jokes. He's funny enough to get his own TV shows and comedy specials, but then again they let Charlie Sheen star in a 8-year-long sitcom, so that's not a very high standard. I mean, he's not Jewish so how good of a comedian can he be?

That's a joke. Based on the stereotype that a lot of standup comedians are Jewi... okay, I'm not funny either. Still, my favorite comedians are guys like Steven Wright and Mitch Hedberg. Louis C.K. is more like George Carlin. I know in most circles that's a compliment, but despite having seen most of Carlin's work I don't think he's that funny either. All of this sounds weird if you know me because I love comedy. I'm the sort of guy who only watches television for the comedy. I just don't like people like Carlin and C.K. who talk about educated things (religion, evolution, politics, etc) in uneducated ways. They don't do their research. They just write jokes. It's not smart. It's stupid. Even though they're generally making fun of other people for being stupid.

Way off track. Not the point.

This blog post, believe it or not, is actually being written to support Louis C.K. He's doing something pretty gutsy. To be fair, the guy is a fairly successful comedian. I don't think his experiment's failure is really going to destroy him. I do think it might make him some enemies. After having comedy specials on networks like HBO and Comedy Central, Louis C.K. decided to release his most recent video, Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater, entirely online! Ballsy move! He's ignoring the networks and television completely.

It's fantastic. He's the Comic version of authors who publish their books straight to the Kindle! You can go to his website and buy his entire special for $5. (Or, if you want to see what I mean about talking about evolution in uneducated ways, watch the free sample of a joke not included in the purchased product. I watched it after typing this and it fits what I'm saying exactly.)

I plan on buying the special. It's only five bucks for crying out loud. And I'm sure I'll laugh at parts of it. It might be the funniest thing on Earth. This isn't a review. I haven't watched it. I just really like the idea of what this guy is trying to do.

I hope this leads to other comedians trying something similar. I would like to see this catch on. Cable companies are becoming way too controlling and way too stuck. Just like the large publishing houses had to adapt to the change in book publishing, cable companies need to realize they can't stop the spread of things like this.

Bring on the mediocrity, Louis C.K.! Let the world rejoice!

Check out the website and buy his video for just $5

Oh, I like this, if you go to buy the video, Louis C.K. has this statement right before you do:

With the recently discovered “Let it snow” on Google.com, I wanted to make a list of all the different Easter Eggs people have found. The best ones are the ones built into the search engine behind the scenes, but some of them take advantage of the “I’m Feeling Lucky!” button that takes you to the top search result when you click it.

(For the record, many of these don’t work on Mobile devices or with browsers that don’t support Java/HTML5 very well. Internet Explorer is a prime example. Try Firefox instead. Free advertising! Pay me Mozilla!)

Hard to see the snow when Google's page is mostly white...

Let it Snow

Type the phrase "let it snow" into Google to get a Christmas miracle! Snowflakes fall down the screen. I don't know about anyone else, but they don't quite look like snowflakes to me. They look like boxes, and some of them have the numbers "2744" and "2745" in them. Not sure why that is.

As an added bonus, the screen will start to fog up. And you can use your cursor to wipe it away, or just click the "Defrost" button, which used to be the Search tool.

Hanukkah

Google doesn't leave out the Jews, either! Typing "Hanukkah" into Google will decorate your page with a festive banner across the top.

It's a line from the awesome game StarFox if you didn't know!

Do a barrel roll or Z or R twice

This is probably the most famous one since being revealed in November 2011. Just type "Do a barrel roll" into Google and watch what happens! Silly Google.

Askew or Tilt

These two words will do the same thing to Google. Try not to tip your head.

Recursion

This one is my favorite because it's the most subtle and not really that great. The word recursion is probably more well-known to computer programmers and tech geeks than to averagely intelligent people like myself. The word refers to a programming technique that refers back to itself until specific conditions are met. So, when you type the word into Google the search engine asks you: "Did you mean: recursion?" It's the exact same word even though that question is usually trying to correct an errant search.  Usually when something has to be explained this much it's no longer funny. Still, I like it.

Anagram

Google provides you with an anagram when you type in anagram. Of course, in order for this one to be funny you need to know what "anagram" means.

Google Gravity

This is just a website that makes use of the "I'm Feeling Lucky!" button. Type "Google Gravity" and then hit that button and it takes you to a tricky website.

Chuck Norris

This one used to work but no longer does. It was supposed to take you to http://www.nochucknorris.com when you typed it. It's a funny site that imitates the Google Search but provides a Chuck Norris fact on searching.

Click the Pacman banner to play the game!

Pacman

Google has a history of reshaping their banners to mark special events and holidays. The Pacman banner is one of the most famous, and because of that it's one of the few that has stuck around. Just go to http://www.google.com/pacman.

Google Calculator

If you don't already know, Google's search engine also has a built in Calculator. For example, if you type "1+1" into Google, it will give you the answer. (2, if you didn't know.)

Well, the calculator can do some funny things as well. For example, it uses some very weird, very rare and even very made-up measurements like the beard-second, used in nuclear physics to represent very small distances (1 beard-second = 5 nanometers). Other measurements include: Potrzebie, a made-up unit of measurement that was a running gag in Mad magazine; blintz, a Yiddish-derived word to describe a pancake more similar to a crepe and donkeypower, an engineering unit roughly equivalent to one-third of a horsepower.

It can also answer some pop culture equations for you. If you type in "the answer to life, the universe and everything" or "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" the Calculator will spit back "42" based on one of my favorite books of all the time, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"The loneliest number" is equal to "1" based on the famous song by Harry Nilsson.

"The number of horns on a unicorn," "a bakers dozen," and "once in a blue moon" also will return well-calculated answers.

In addition to all that, the calculator is also capable of recognizing mathematical concepts like "pi," "e," and "Avogadro's constant."

These all make visiting Google that much more fun! Hopefully more will be discovered in time, and maybe there are some I just don't know about yet. Either way, I will edit this as I discover them.

Up first: the banning of iPhones in Syria!

This sort of action being taken by a government is why I want to cover tech news some day. It’s why I think it’s extremely fascinating. Technology’s incredible advancement has propelled it to the point where organizations and governments are running out of ways to handle it. The information being thrown around now, that most of us take for granted, is more information than the world has ever had, and we’re learning more in a week than most people throughout history learned in their lifetimes! What sort of impact would men like Plato and Socrates have had on the modern world if they were given the chance to explore philosophy, psychology or art the way we do now?

I can’t speak much about what Syria is doing. I’ve never had much appreciation for the Syrian government in the first place. Why should I be surprised by everything going on? I don’t think it’s going to work for them. Not in the long run. Even if the oppression keeps the current government in power, their power will grow lax while the seeds of revolution continue to grow.

Next: The Occupy Movement

I haven’t paid much attention to it, to be honest. I really don’t support the reasons for their protests. I also think those reasons are really quite vague. However, I don’t agree with people who say they shouldn’t be protesting. There’s nothing wrong with protesting. Anyone can protest for any reason. It’s one of those things free people have a right to. They don’t need a reason.

I was in Greece while a string of riots and protests raged across the country. We were often told to stay in our homes while they did it. Sometimes they would come right up to the gates of our base protesting something to do with Israel. We had nothing to do with Israel, so why were they protesting there? For three weeks we worked at half production because of a gas strike that meant anyone who lived off base couldn’t drive.

During Christmas, a group of young adults burned down the Athens Christmas tree. When order in the area was restored, the government put up another tree. They burned it down again.

And on our island, a group took over the mansion of one of the local city’s governors. They didn’t just vandalize it. They took it over and lived in it until they could get shooed away like a bunch of squatters.

While some of these actions actually had a reason like low pay or bad policies, much of it was the result of the Greeks not really having a method of voicing their opinions in the past. With the popularity of protests growing even more, the Greeks finally realized this was how they could tell their government, and the world as it turns out, that they weren’t happy! And why not? They have a right to be unhappy, and they have a right to say something about it.

Well, I think the same thing is true of these Occupy people. They don’t have to live peacefully. They don’t have to be content. Things are messed up in this world! Especially on the economic and political side. Why not protest? I say go for it.

Third: Mammoths are gonna be roaming the Earth!

Normally, I link to the source sites. However, in this case, the source site is a Japanese one that doesn’t allow you to view the article unless you’re a paid subscriber anyway. So, we’ll go by Gizmodo’s interpretation of events. Really, my opinion on this doesn’t have much to do with Mammoths at all. Considering you need hundreds or thousands of different elements in the gene pool for a species to survive, I doubt we’ll ever see Mammoths in large numbers or as a sustainable species. At the most they might clone one or two in order to study their behavior and get a better idea of their instincts.

The reason I linked to this article is simply because this is an example of why I want to write online. I think being a blogger for a site like Gizmodo would be awesome. It’s the front-line of journalism! If you can manage to become a part of a relatively respectable site like Gizmodo (or Kotaku, which I’m a huge fan of), then you can also become one of the first people to know about something. Anything! You learn it first! You report it first. You talk about it first. That is cool. That’s fun.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the long articles. The features. The pieces of writing some might call art because of the painstaking time it took to research them and put everything together. And I hope to contribute to those some day. But the idea of getting to report on something so quickly and so regularly fascinates me. This is why I don’t watch television anymore. News channels, even a video game channel like G4, are always so far behind the Internet it’s not worth it.

So, anyway, this is me trying to get my blog up and running again. I know this is short and sweet. We’ll see what else I decide to write about in the future!

Of course, my dedication to the Internet caused me to miss my first deadline, and I almost missed the second re-try! So, when I saw it was my turn to post I decided to write up something right then and there seeing as I was at work with nothing to do. So I wrote this in about 30 minutes before coming home from work.

I tried to keep it as raw as possible with just a few typo fixes and such but I like not tampering with my writing. I’m always afraid of removing whatever might actually make my writing unique. And since I don’t believe my ideas will ever be anything revolutionary, it’s my unique voice that will make me stand out if anything at all. I also went heavy on scene-setting since that was the point of the assignment, but I normally don’t do that so it might sound a bit awkward. Hope not, but who knows?

I apologize again for how long it is. Most of these haven’t been more than 300-400 words at most. I actually had to cut mine to get it under 1,000.

For those of you who haven’t seen something like this on a blog before, keep reading after the description for a link to all the other bloggers participating in the chain and read their descriptions, too!

The story starts as soon as you click

Vegas has this grand appeal as a city of light, a city of fun and a city of spontaneity. On the outside, it feels that way. Surrounded by desert, the city stands out as an oasis in an otherwise barren land. I always drive there because watching that skyline spread out in front of you on I-15 is as good a feeling as winning at slots. Then, when you finally pull onto Las Vegas Boulevard, you’re bombarded by huge build boards, brilliant neon signs and horizon-stretching buildings that have no place in this dry, arid world. Everything seems new and exciting and connected. And it really is, even more than you might think at first. But it’s all an illusion. As magnificent as the casino might seem on the outside, the inside leaves you feeling as dirty and abandoned as if you’d been caught in a Nevada dust storm with no gas for your car.

Casinos are not places for happy people. The smart ones are the people who know the money they just withdrew from the ATM was meant to be lost on the tables. The smarter ones are the tourists who want the $10 Subway sandwiches and the pool and have no intention of gambling at all. But despite what they’ve heard and what their parents told them and what they probably do believe is right, I know most people who plan to gamble in Vegas think less about losing the money and more about the chances of winning. And that’s why casinos are lonely, sad, places.

Much like the outer skin of Vegas, the inside is loaded with sound and light. Slot machines twinkle and sing, and their displays flash with every pop culture reference possible to lure you in. I particularly enjoyed hearing Chewbacca’s growl as I walked down the aisle. If I’m going to lose money, I might as well become a Jedi to do it. But I ignored the rows of slots and electronic roulette games because my focus was on the group of tables in the middle of the floor.

The card tables form a circle with a wide, empty space separating them from the regular slot machines. This setup suggests to me these tables want to be more secure than the machines, sort of like circling the wagons to brace for an attack. The inside of the circle is off-limits to anyone not wearing a suit and a badge, and those few men move from table to table like hawks guarding prey… or maybe vultures scavenging the damned.

When you sit at one of these tables, you better know what you’re doing. The company you keep is usually a group of people growing more and more broke as time goes on. They are only pleasant with you in Vegas because as long as you’re gambling, the drinks are free. But even that pleasantry laced with drunkenness grows thin if you continue to make mistakes costing them their precious chips.

The longer you play, the more you learn. I only play blackjack as it has the best odds of winning, but that’s like saying I only play Lawn Darts because it’s not as likely to kill me as much as Live Action Frogger. Either way, it’s dangerous. So I always set limits for myself.

This time in Vegas I was here to spend with my friends, so I said I’d only gamble $100. Normally, that’d be fine except I underestimated just how awesome I am at gambling. By the time my friends had arrived, $100 became $300. The tables become a lot friendlier when you’re winning. The cocktail waitresses are prettier, the dealers are funnier, and that old Chinese guy who’s been sitting at the other end of the table actually starts speaking English even though you were pretty sure he didn’t know any. The room lights up. That feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach has gone away and your bets have become a little looser. After all, this isn’t your money. It’s Vegas money.

And after a couple of days of smart play and a few winnings here and there, I amassed a small fortune from that original $100. I felt pretty good about myself, sitting at a table gathering my pile of red $5 chips like a leprechaun who’s just found his gold. I won $400 in that one sitting. I was making back the $100 I had lost at the previous table, but then the luck was going my way and I kept with it. By the time I had hit $400 at that table I was sitting on $600 and feeling good. When I cashed in all my chips and exchanged those five $100 chips for that one pink $500 chip, I had hit the top of my game. I decided to take a break and my walk was a little smoother as I moved toward the elevators to my room. My attitude was a little cockier and my eyes glowed every time the chips smacked against my leg from the inside of my pocket.

It’s been a little over a week since that feeling. And all I can say now, after returning from Vegas to my normal life and my normal job is how much I wish I had walked away completely. The next time I would sit down at the tables would begin a 12-hour long spiral of loss and defeat right up until the few hours before I left Vegas, but I managed to walk away with the original $100 I had decided to bet, and that’s more than most people can say when they step into that glorious city of light.

Check out these other far better writers and what scenes they set:

orion_mk3 (link to this month’s post)
juniper (link to this month’s post)
LadyMage (link to this month’s post)
dolores haze (link to this month’s post)
jkellerford (link to this month’s post)
Ralph Pines (link to this month’s post)
AuburnAssassin (link to this month’s post)
pezie (link to this month’s post)
Inkstrokes (link to this month’s post)
WildScribe (link to this month’s post)
Guardian (link to this month’s post)
Lyra Jean (link to this month’s post)
egoodlett (link to this month’s post)
cwachob (link to this month’s post)
Aheila (link to this month’s post)
faerydancer (link to this month’s post)
TheMindKiller That’s me!
Irissel (link to this month’s post)
xcomplex (link to this month’s post)
Robbi Sommers Bryant (link to this month’s post)