This Christmas turned out to be an extra special one. I got to go home and visit with my family. I haven’t gone home in a while. My brother and his family; Arleen my sister-in-law and nephew CJ, are all moving to Washington D.C. within the next month. I really wanted to see them and spend some time with them before they head to the east coast. My nephew is so big now, he is 6 years old and he is so freaking smart. They are doing a great job of raising him. I love that my nephew and I are close. Even though I am not back home in Louisiana he still knows who his uncle is and that I love him.
This brings me to my favorite part of my trip home. So as I stated in an earlier blog, I have a niece that I have not seen in many, many years. I love my niece and have wanted to find her, but of course life gets in the way of our wants many times. Well go figure that I found her mom, Tammy Charles on Myspace. I wasn’t sure if it was her, but I worked up the courage to send her a message and make contact and sure enough it was Tammy. I was beaming from ear to ear to have found them. So I sent Tammy my number via Myspace and she called. We talked for a good while that night and she brought me up to speed on the family. Both Tammy and Requila (Dez) are doing well, as are her brothers, Sean and Zack, they are all still in Lafayette. I wanted to try to drive out there to visit while I was home, but I didn’t drive to LA, so I couldn’t. I am going to go back out there in a couple weeks if they are cool with that to visit and bring gifts.
You can not imagine how much this means to me to be with in a phone calls distance of my niece, who is now a 19 year old woman. I can not believe that she is 19 already. There is no way to make up for time that has been lost, all we can do is try to go forward. There is a whole future out there waiting for all of us, so having more people who care about you to lend you strength and wish you well is crucial. I look forward to trying to be as good an uncle to my niece as I have tried to be to my nephew.
Until next time, keep smiling.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Trust part 1
If someone says to you that they want your heart, that they want you to trust them and love them. Isn’t it only fair and right of you to put that to the test? Now I don’t mean go out of your way to screw with them or mess them up. But, in ways both subtle and demonstrative shouldn’t you test the commitment they say they are ready for, especially if that person has broken down that trust by their own actions in the past.
I know I have a tendency to ask crazy questions but most times I ask questions to gain insight or to gain knowledge. Many other times I ask questions to try to get the other persons mind to open up or to wander outside of a comfort zone.
At Disney we have a philosophy called “Being on Stage”. We believe that you are always on stage, thus always representing Disney, when someone can see that you are a part of Disney. To me this correlates with always being tested. Life is about tests and you are always being tested. Sometimes it’s easy to pass, just say what someone wants to hear or just saying the truth. Other times though, it is not so easy, many times you can’t even tell you are being tested.
This all is coming from the fact that I recently asked someone a rather subtle question. Now yeah it may have come off as nosey, but I stated I was just curious. I got no answer and the question was just evaded. Before I asked this question I thought to myself ‘if I ask this question will this person tell me the truth’, it turned out to be a test. I didn’t intend for it to be that but that is what happened. If you want to build trust you have to be willing to answer tough and easy questions even if it is not what the person wants to hear. I truly would have been fine with either a yes or a no answer but to be evaded lets me know that I should not put all my trust back into this person.
Everyone who knows me knows I am an easy going person. They know that though I may not like what someone says, I will let them say it and evaluate it after. I don’t fly off the handle or get mad and pout. That is why I am perturbed by the fact that I could not get a straight answer to my question.
I guess if someone wants to earn your trust again you have to be very careful.
I know I have a tendency to ask crazy questions but most times I ask questions to gain insight or to gain knowledge. Many other times I ask questions to try to get the other persons mind to open up or to wander outside of a comfort zone.
At Disney we have a philosophy called “Being on Stage”. We believe that you are always on stage, thus always representing Disney, when someone can see that you are a part of Disney. To me this correlates with always being tested. Life is about tests and you are always being tested. Sometimes it’s easy to pass, just say what someone wants to hear or just saying the truth. Other times though, it is not so easy, many times you can’t even tell you are being tested.
This all is coming from the fact that I recently asked someone a rather subtle question. Now yeah it may have come off as nosey, but I stated I was just curious. I got no answer and the question was just evaded. Before I asked this question I thought to myself ‘if I ask this question will this person tell me the truth’, it turned out to be a test. I didn’t intend for it to be that but that is what happened. If you want to build trust you have to be willing to answer tough and easy questions even if it is not what the person wants to hear. I truly would have been fine with either a yes or a no answer but to be evaded lets me know that I should not put all my trust back into this person.
Everyone who knows me knows I am an easy going person. They know that though I may not like what someone says, I will let them say it and evaluate it after. I don’t fly off the handle or get mad and pout. That is why I am perturbed by the fact that I could not get a straight answer to my question.
I guess if someone wants to earn your trust again you have to be very careful.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Harry Turtledove Colonization Series
So the next series by Harry Turtledove is called Colonization. It is twenty years later and most of our favorite characters are still alive and causing trouble still. The world is in essence at peace but things can only get crazy when the colonization fleet starts to approach.
In the twenty years since the initial invasion, humans have branched out to space and increased the knowledge of nuclear weapons. They are no longer huge 10 ton bombs that are impossible to move around. Now they are smaller and fit on the end of rockets that sit unmanned in space just waiting to be used. The aliens are still much stronger than the 3 independent nations and their allies in Britain, Japan, and Canada.
As the colonization fleet makes orbit an unthinkable act is committed. An orbiting platform that has been hidden from observation opens up and launches and attack on one of the defenseless ships and in a nuclear blast kills 12 million aliens who were still in frozen sleep. The aliens are beside themselves and declare there will be all out war once they find out who committed this heinous act. Knowing that only 3 nations posses the know how to do something they each are quick to say it was not them. But there must be retribution, so the aliens are allowed to attack some place in each country for symbolisms sake.
As the colonization fleet settles in new difficulties arise especially as it relates to ginger. To us humans it is just a spice, but to the aliens it is like PCP or LCD would be to a human for the first time. Except they get this high, this rush every time they take a taste of ginger. After one taste they are hooked. But no one, not even the aliens were prepared for what would happen when the females of the colonization fleet tasted ginger. Being that the aliens are like lizards, they mate for a season and any other time don’t engage in mating. In the conquest fleet there were no females so there was not a way to study what it would do to females. Once a female alien tastes ginger she instantly went into season and started producing pheromones that sent males into a mating rage. Thus males who were supposed to be on patrol would forget themselves and fight amongst each other over a female.
A lot of this second series focuses on the ginger trade and how humans use it to confound the aliens and make their lives difficult. But we would not be humans if we did not think of fighting and that is exactly what the Germans are doing. Himmler is now Fuhrer and he is power mad, he intends on fighting the aliens again. After his sudden death the world has hope that the war will not come, but Ernst Kaltenbrunner replaced him and decided to take on the aliens. As Germany launches an offensive war against the aliens the rest of the world braces. The aliens pound them flat and nearly destroy all of Germany. At the behest of Russia and the U.S. they pull back from utter and total destruction and occupy the rest of Germany, leaving a flimsy independence.
We finally find out who committed the attack on the colonization fleet. It was the United States by direct order of the president. The aliens want blood and give and ultimatum of vaporizing a U.S. city or the U.S. giving up its positions in space and return its spaceship to Earth. And face continued inspections by the race to reduce its arms. Left with no good options the president makes two monumental decisions, that leave a reader shocked to his/her core. Knowing that we one day want to visit their home planet you can guess one decision he made.
Thus we have the opportunity to be Homeward Bound.
In the twenty years since the initial invasion, humans have branched out to space and increased the knowledge of nuclear weapons. They are no longer huge 10 ton bombs that are impossible to move around. Now they are smaller and fit on the end of rockets that sit unmanned in space just waiting to be used. The aliens are still much stronger than the 3 independent nations and their allies in Britain, Japan, and Canada.
As the colonization fleet makes orbit an unthinkable act is committed. An orbiting platform that has been hidden from observation opens up and launches and attack on one of the defenseless ships and in a nuclear blast kills 12 million aliens who were still in frozen sleep. The aliens are beside themselves and declare there will be all out war once they find out who committed this heinous act. Knowing that only 3 nations posses the know how to do something they each are quick to say it was not them. But there must be retribution, so the aliens are allowed to attack some place in each country for symbolisms sake.
As the colonization fleet settles in new difficulties arise especially as it relates to ginger. To us humans it is just a spice, but to the aliens it is like PCP or LCD would be to a human for the first time. Except they get this high, this rush every time they take a taste of ginger. After one taste they are hooked. But no one, not even the aliens were prepared for what would happen when the females of the colonization fleet tasted ginger. Being that the aliens are like lizards, they mate for a season and any other time don’t engage in mating. In the conquest fleet there were no females so there was not a way to study what it would do to females. Once a female alien tastes ginger she instantly went into season and started producing pheromones that sent males into a mating rage. Thus males who were supposed to be on patrol would forget themselves and fight amongst each other over a female.
A lot of this second series focuses on the ginger trade and how humans use it to confound the aliens and make their lives difficult. But we would not be humans if we did not think of fighting and that is exactly what the Germans are doing. Himmler is now Fuhrer and he is power mad, he intends on fighting the aliens again. After his sudden death the world has hope that the war will not come, but Ernst Kaltenbrunner replaced him and decided to take on the aliens. As Germany launches an offensive war against the aliens the rest of the world braces. The aliens pound them flat and nearly destroy all of Germany. At the behest of Russia and the U.S. they pull back from utter and total destruction and occupy the rest of Germany, leaving a flimsy independence.
We finally find out who committed the attack on the colonization fleet. It was the United States by direct order of the president. The aliens want blood and give and ultimatum of vaporizing a U.S. city or the U.S. giving up its positions in space and return its spaceship to Earth. And face continued inspections by the race to reduce its arms. Left with no good options the president makes two monumental decisions, that leave a reader shocked to his/her core. Knowing that we one day want to visit their home planet you can guess one decision he made.
Thus we have the opportunity to be Homeward Bound.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
