Crashing down around my ears…

Though not updated I have been making some progress on Modern Man;however, I found the project was taking a real toll on me. Emotionally speaking, I thought I was ready to tell that story. Now I find that I am not. There is a lot of me in there, and sometimes when we look into the mirror we really don’t like what we see. In this case, the path of this modern man is an ugly trial that isn’t happy being retread.

2011 is ending, and good riddance. While there has been a lot of good in it, I am glad to see the tail end. I pray that 2012 brings me some stability and balance.

So what’s next? What are my plans for the near future? What are my goals for 2012? No idea. I have a whole long list of things I would like to do and achieve, but like having a lottery ticket I don’t want. totals about it in fear of jinxing it.

One thing I will say, as if you didn’t notice all ready. I am rebranding the site. This is no longer just writings and musings. That name doesn’t fit. I do like story telling, and that is something I would like to do more of… so there it is. Welcome to Brian Clay’s Storytelling.

Modern Man, Life and other Nonsense

Things in my life are a bit of a wreck.

Once some of the details unwind themselves, I will most likely make a huge cathartic post but until then, dear readers, you can assume that my life is a bit of a wreck and nothing is going as planned.

That said, I have shelved all of my fantasy projects, not that they were making much progress, and I am putting my steam behind a fiction project that has been tickling the back of my mind for the past 20 years or so. Right now I am calling it Making of a Modern Man, it is a semi-autobiographical tale that many in my life have been wanting told. I selected fiction, because the truth would never be believed and adding some artistic license gives me some need fudge room.

So that’s it… I will try to make some additional posts as I make progress in the current life drama and in the story itself.

Are you ready for some football?

Last year my son played in his first season of flag football. He had a ball and spent the off season constantly asking about the next season. For the 2011 season he is old/big enough to move up to tackle; however, my wife and I decided that he needed one more year in flag before moving up.

At registration I recalled how the previous years coach needed extra help so I signed up to be an assistant. A few weeks later I was informed that enough kids signed up for 3 full flag teams; however, there was only one head coach. Then before I knew it I was the head coach for a flag football team of 5,6 and 7 year olds.

Since August I have been spending my nights trying to teach my team the basics of football and during the day I spent every free hour (when not working) planing practices, plays and drills. I read once that in coaching one of the best ways to overcome inexperience was through preparation. So I prepared.

We are now 3 games into our season, with 5 more to go. Today the team fought for what I consider their first win. There is some dispute over the last few plays of the game, but 14-13 was the score when the clock ran out.

Being the coach for these young boys has been a wonderful experience, one that has brought joy to my life.

Being Daddy – Your body has a sense of humor

My son has recently turned seven, for his birthday he received a toy “Thor’s Hammer” that produces the sound of thunder when you press a button. He has had a ball playing the backyard pretending to vanquish hordes of frost giants with his mighty hammer.

Last night at bedtime, he was giving me a hard time, what seven year old willingly goes to bed on time. I was in a silly mood. I took up the toy hammer, held it a loft and declared, “I am Thor god of Thunder…” at which point my body unplanned and unintentionally made “thunder”.

My son and I both collapsed into a fit of laughter, that brought tears to his eyes and I practically lost consciousness. Needless to say it was pretty tough getting him calmed down for bed, but it was a moment that made me really happy to be a daddy.

Charity

Charity as the action of lending aid to a neighbor or person in need is something that many people or organizations use as a means to justify taking money from one person and giving it to another. At its core charity is a very good thing, life is a hard thing and very few people can make it through the tough times without the aid of others at some point, whether financially of emotionally.

I learned about charity in Sunday school at a Southern Baptist church. Now when it comes to a community rallying to aid or support a person or family in need nothing, in my opinion, moves with the shear power or grace than a Southern Baptist Church Family. I will forever be thankful to the way my childhood church jumped into my family during the events surrounding my grandmother’s death. The people of that church, many complete strangers at the time, did everything in their power to ease the grief my family was feeling. But I digress.

So for me charity was not always about money, it was about actions, it was being a shoulder to cry on, it was preparing a meal, sharing food, providing clothing, mowing a lawn or even giving a stranger a ride to a doctors appointment. Charity was something that was very personal, something that I would do to help another person that many times had direct results.

I suppose in many ways this is why I have a hard time with the big corporate “Charity” organizations. They rarely want your time they only want your money, and on top of that many of the people that “work” for them make insanely high salaries. I have issue with people making personal money from something called a charity.

Recently there have been many conversation concerning entitlement programs within our local and federal governments needing more money and that by taxing people more it will keep providing for these “charitable” programs. So I ask If you force someone to give money to a charity, is it a charity any more?

I said that I believe charity is a personal thing; so I tend to say no. A compulsory charity is little more than theft. Charity comes from the heart and good intentions of the giver, by forcing people to give it creates waves of resentment from the givers which kills the charitable nature of that person over the longer term. “Why should I give more when I already pay for food stamps, housing, etc..” Sure it makes that person sound cold hearted, but when they presented with a large population of “needy” that have the same possessions and services that they have but have done nothing to earn them they cannot help but feeling resentment.

I have seen how a community will come to the aid of the needy and provide the means for that person to get back on their own feet and then in turn become one of the community. I have also seen people take advantaged of the good hearts of well meaning folks.

I am not really trying to solve the problem, I am only pointing out that it is a problem.

For me, charity is when I make donations to local food banks, volunteer to help the blind or help my elderly neighbor when their basements flood. What is taken from my taxes and given to others… to me that is not charity that borders on state sanctioned robbery.

What is money?

Everything lately seems to be revolving around money, who has how much, do they deserve it, should they be allowed to have as much as they do, should they be forced to share?

What is money? The way I see it, money is a commonly accepted unit that measures a person’s production or work. Or rather it is a tool/measure to facilitate exchange of produced goods.

Who determines the worth or magnitude of someone’s production? That is question that most people struggle with, after all are we not all equal? I am not sure why people feel to connect a persons wealth and a person’s worth… Personally, I have met some very wealthily people that were not worth that much (to me).
But in terms of measuring the worth of someone’s production, well that can be measured against the demand of that production vs. the number of people that can provide that production.

Example…. (an easy one)
A doctor. It is safe to say that the demand for a doctor’s production is pretty high; and due to the process of becoming a doctor there are not a whole lot of people that can become a doctor. So with a limited number of producers and a high demand for the production… well that production is worth more units of exchange than say a fast food cashier (medium demand with very high pool of producers to pull from).

Now should the units of exchange be taken from the doctor and given to the cashier? What would be the rational for that? The cashier has not earned or produced enough to receive those units, and within our society if the cashier wants to achieve the same level of compensation then they have the right and opportunities to work toward that goal.
I am not saying that the cashier will or should be able to earn at the same level as a doctor while remaining a cashier. No they would need to display the ability to produce something that would put them at the same level as a doctor. Example, they could go to school, and learn a new skill that could be applied at a new vocation.

Here is another question. Should production units be taken from the cashier and given to a person that is unemployed or currently not producing anything at all?

Okay, about education. I tend to be a bit conflicted about this one. While I do believe that everyone that wants an education should be provided an opportunity for that education, I question whether it is the responsibility of the community of producers to shoulder the burden of cost when there is just a great risk associated with the return on that investment. I favor a more performance based approach, meaning that if a person is unable to provide for the cost of their education and can prove their ability to meet the standards for the related field of study (passing course work at a better than satisfactory level) then cost deferment can take place or the community can accept some or all of that burden, perhaps even treat it as a loan. Not that any of that in new in concept. The point is, the hard work should be rewarded and the lack of hard work should not be. After all everyone has the opportunity to become a doctor but not everyone can become a doctor.

Tax on production, it is safe to say that the government has expenses and to support those expenses citizens should have a portion of their production taxed. Now, I am in favor of a flat tax. Meaning that everyone is taxed at the same rate. At a rate of 20% of production at all earning levels (which means that no one would excluded from taxation) the government would be provided with an acceptable “income” to handle responsible spending. Of course people could argue that 20% is too much for some and thus not enough from others.

I think that we are reaching a point in our country where the producers the earners at almost every level are becoming crushed under the insatiable government that we have created. We have cast off the so called shackles of personal responsibility and are unwilling to accept the consequences of those actions. We have become selfish and irresponsible. It is not fair or just to punish the earners and it should be a caution to those that wish to continue down this path that eventually when pushed hard enough earners will decide to stop earning. While that might not seem to be a big risk, imagine if those earners are the men and women that produce the food we eat.

Spring Break, Birthday Parties and Easter a perfect storm

I have determined that large disruptions to routine will derail early weight loss efforts.

Seems like common sense, and I am sure that the super thin, healthy and perfect weight loss specialist will be more than willing to charge a few hundred dollars to tell you or me that pearl of wisdom. Not much bitterness there right?

So I was derailed last week. Spring break threw me off my getting to the gym track. My gym is at work so there were no visits to the sweat factory. Sure had the weather been better I suppose I could have gotten out for walks around the block or even some stretching or in the home exercise. I did a few little things, but on the whole I don’t count that. No gym means no gym.

Birthday party, my son turned 7 this week. I was able to resist over dousing on sweets, but it was hard. I did have one small piece of cake, but it felt like there was always something sweet being offered.

Easter, again the sweet stuff was around and I was able to ignore most of it. A few jelly beans did find their way into my mouth, but the peeps and chocolate bunnies were spared. No the big issue for me w the family meal. With piles of meat, potatoes and carrots I will admit that I ate too much and not enough of the good stuff. On the whole the salad went untouched.

On top of that there was a lot of eating out this week which is never a good thing.

So it works out that I gained a pound. Not a big deal compared to how much I want to lose but a set back is a set back. It also makes me more worried for the Disney vacation. To make matters worse there are some support issues in my endeavor, I am sure there will be more on that subject in the future.

7/70

Week of Water Weight

Last week the scale really scared me. I weighed myself everyday, which is not a good thing to do by-the-way, it only makes you crazy on days where a half pound or more shows up of the display that you were not expecting to see.

This week I am going to try not to look at the scale until Sunday, my weigh in day.

Anyway, so why did the scale scare me. Well it looks like I have dropped 8 pounds. Now all the experts say that losing more than 1 to 2 pounds a week is not healthy, so that had me a little nervous because I didn’t think I was doing anything too extreme.

So this is the breakdown of what I did —
Made it to the gym for a 45 minute work out 3 days.
Cut back on the soda (only had 2)
Drank more water
Cut down on portion sizes, I paid very close attention to my body and stopped eating when I was full, even if there was food still left on the plate.
As for food, no special diet there. I ate salads, bagels (toasted with a touch of butter), chicken, shrimp… come to think of it I had no red meat last week. I also found myself resisting the urge to snack.
I also made sure that I was getting plenty of rest at night.

In the past the first week has always been met with a big drop, water weight, so while I expected a big number, like 3 or 4 pounds, I w not prepared for 8. Now I should be thrilled with such a drop, but I want to make sure that I am not hurting myself. We will see if things level off this week.

This is vacation week for my son, so I have a couple of vacation days to help out around the house. I want to meet the same goals as Alastair week, 3 visits to the gym, more water, less soda, controlled food portions… The risk to it all is Easter, here comes the chocolate bunnies and peeps, combined with my son’s birthday.

So wish me luck…

8/70

190 before I bust

Start in about 2000 I have been waging a war with my weight. I am not winning. I have bounced from 180 to 260 pounds at various points over the last 11 years and to be honest I am tired of it. I have tired fad diets, various gym programs, pills and what not… Nothing seems to be working.

Again, I am trying to loss some weight. I figured that like so many before me I will chronicle my journey and hopefully learn something about myself and who knows maybe stumble across some advice or tricks that will help me or someone else.

I have set a goal for myself, to loss 70 pounds for the end of the year. Which is an average of a little less than 2 pounds a week. Simple goal, right?

The Plan….

Cut back on portion sizes (aka stop finishing what the kids leave over)
Get the to gym 3 times a week
Cut back on the soda (yeah, I know I should cut it out completely, but I am trying to be realistic)
Not get derailed by Disney Vacation, birthdays, holidays…
Be prepared for change…

Of course the plan will change over the course of the next 8 months…

So wish me luck and check back as I plan to write at least weekly on how things are going.

0/70

Welcome to April

Okay, I admit I have been a bit lax in posting. Amazing how quickly things fall to the wayside when you are living your life.

I have started 10 for more posting over the last few months, but they all seem to reach a point where I start to question whether or not I should share these ideas/feelings/commentaries publicly. I was raised to think before I speak, in our current world I have turned that into, think and wait before you post. I think 24 hours is a good amount of time to reread a potential post before releasing it to the wild.

That randomness aside, writing has not been a priority lately. I am sad to say that Kingdom Crisis h been neglected and will most likely continue to be for awhile. It is not because I don’t have the stories, it is more the time. With two little ones and my wife at home, there are things that always become more important than spending hours in front of the computer writing for myself. Legos will always trump me time.

That said, I am not abandoning anything, it will just take longer to create content.