Memory is a funny thing

/ Frank Balsinger / Leave a comment

memory

Now, I’m no scientist. I’ve read some things. They’re dated by now. I recall some things from those readings. What I recall accurately is dated now.

Then there’s all the things I only think I recall. I don’t know that I recall them well unless I check myself, but that’s really just not the way it works, is it? Even if I had the motivation, and I kind of do, who’s got the time for that?  I try my best to do that if I’m stating something as fact, but stating categorically that something is factual is a vice I try not to indulge in. As a virtue, it’s reserved for rationalists attempting to persuade someone with sound arguments and compelling evidence. Continue reading →

The muse is kind tonight

/ Frank Balsinger / Leave a comment

scales

As a new homeowner (of sorts…contract for deed, so I’ll officially have a half-interest in about 15 years), I’m quickly learning how much I have to learn. There are some DIY tasks around the house I can handle, like painting a room. Things like roof and sheetrock repair I’m content to leave to a great friend who is a veritable genius at his trade. And then there’s all the other considerations.

As I understand it, ordinarily the first things the new homeowner should focus on are the un-sexy infrastructural aspects. How are the heating and cooling and hot water tank and insulation and and plumbing and wiring and appliances. From the get go here? Sufficiently good. The insulation is excellent. Heating costs are offset a bit by a wood-burning stove. We’re off to a flying start. Continue reading →

Checking in

/ Frank Balsinger / Leave a comment

One more work day to go. Things are still looking good. Boss appears generally happy. I’m still enjoying the new job smell of the place and the people are all awesome. Any given night I’m likely to work late on something, but as much as possible Saturday is still Frank Day (what, you don’t have a weekly observance?). Sunday is likely to find me at the office purging file cabinets, because it would be an extremely useful thing to do with big efficiency payoffs and just isn’t the kind of thing that lends itself to regular hours.

Saturday, I’m especially looking forward to playing Tiny Epic Quest [affiliate link alert for all such links] for the first time. So far I’ve only had the chance once to just get it all set up, which was fun in itself. It would be nice to actually play it, though.

tinyepicquest

Continue reading →

Where to begin?

/ Frank Balsinger / 1 Comment

As I’m prone to say about storytelling, every story begins in medias res. Does my story begin in a VA hospital in the wee hours of April Fool’s Day morning, a few short months after the Tet Offensive, half a month after the My Lai massacre, and the day after LBJ announced he would not be running for re-election?

Or does my story properly start during the long hot summer of 1967? Sometime on or about June 26, when the Pope announced some new cardinals, the Egyptians and the Israelis were momentarily cooling their jets after the Six-Day War, and race riots were spreading across the American landscape faster than 21st Century anti-vaxxer measles, the birds and the bees likely met in the back of a swank little love nest something like this one:

kenworth

Maybe the story begins with the bird and the bee who eventually maybe did a little rockin’ while nobody was knockin’? Who’s to say for sure? All the eye-witnesses are now long dead. Continue reading →