"The Family Man" Movie Makes a Splash for Me

I have a list of the "perfect" movies, which you can see in the Quasi-Indefatigable Xenolith Store, but this is not one of them.  Don't get me wrong, The Family Man is a wonderful movie and I cry a lot when watching it (actually I would cry in the middle of a horror movie if I actually watched horror movies, so this is not as big a thing as you might think).  In a previous post, I talked about being a lot like George Bailey from It's A Wonderful Life, which I think is true, but I am not Jack Campbell, the protagonist of this movie.  I'm George, not Jack.  Remember that.

Jack Campbell is coping
with the life he could have had.

If nothing else, The Family Man is an opposite of It's a Wonderful Life.  Where George Bailey had to almost lose his life to understand how to be grateful for what he had, Jack Campbell had to see what kind of life he could have had so that he could see that there was more to life than what he already had.  The first is about gratitude, the second is about regret.  I say that I am George because I haven't screwed it up yet and I can still look at my life and be grateful for what I have.  I am not Jack and I an so thankful that I am not - I haven't gone someplace or done something or made some large, seemingly irreversible choice that I actually regret.  It's a Wonderful Life makes me grateful for what I have, and The Family Man makes me grateful that I have not yet made a really big mistake.


I can tell you how I have avoided making a big mistake.  I don't remember consciously making my first covenant with God at the age of eight when I was baptized and when servants of God laid their hands on my head and gave me the supernal gift of the Holy Ghost, but I am grateful every day that those things happened to me.  It is the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost that I enjoy, courtesy of a kind and loving Heavenly Father, that I have been able to make the right decisions in my life.

Let me give you an example.

I am married to the most wonderful woman in the world, as far as I am concerned.  If I could only say one thing about Lisa, it would be that she helps me be my best self.  She (somewhat) patiently helps me to see what I should be doing and waits for me to figure things out, especially the important things.  She is my best friend, my deepest confidant, and my perfect compliment.  Every time I put her happiness ahead of my own, I have always been thankful for the outcome.  I love her with all my heart and my greatest desire is to be her husband not just for this life, but for all eternity.  I am so grateful that I asked her to marry me, that she said "yes", and that we made another covenant with God, in his holy temple, that we would do whatever it took to be together forever.

The Holy Ghost has been a daily participant in my life, as much as I can make him so, and that relationship has helped me see over the years how wonderful my life with Lisa has been and can continue to be.  Of course, I could say things about how grateful I am for my children and my parents as well, but I think this is enough to show you that I don't regret a thing (so far).

If you want to know more about covenants that you can make with God, visit http://www.mormon.org.  You can live the regret-free life starting today!

Oh, coincidently, The Family Man had a weird ending that really takes away from the experience, but if you can see past that, it is a wonderful movie that can change your life for the better!

Amazon Store Updates

I added a whole new section to my Amazon store just for Terry Gilliam films that I really like.

Someday, I want to go to a place or live in a neighborhood where everyone understands Gilliam.  I think I might be happy in a place like that!

I am Harry Tuttle as well

A while back, I talked about my George Bailey circumstances.  Of course, some people will get confused and say that I am some sort of altruistic credit union sort, which I can be on the odd Thursday.

Archibald (Harry) Tuttle

I am more like Archibald (Harry) Tuttle, the rogue heating engineer in the Terry Gilliam movie "Brazil".

Harry Tuttle: Listen, this old system of yours could be on fire and I couldn't even turn on the kitchen tap without filling out a 27b/6... Bloody paperwork.
Sam Lowry: I suppose one has to expect a certain amount.
Harry Tuttle: Why? I came into this game for the action, the excitement. Go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone. Now they got the whole country sectioned off, you can't make a move without a form.

Like me, he tends to be competent, efficient, quietly conspiratorial, and appropriately paranoid.  Harry understands how his world really works and has found his own ways to cope that work well enough, although against all social norms.  Above all else, Harry Tuttle seems to eek out happiness and authentic purpose in a stupid and superficial world!  What a great guy!

People I Honor: Jon Postel

I love Jon Postel because of his Robustness Principle and how it can be applied far and wide from the confines of computer science. All great truth finds wide application!

Also he had a flowing beard and wore sandals and was the ultimate editor of technology. Yes, I am weird and read RFCs for fun. Jon's RFCs were the best - pure poetry!

The Internet works because Jon Postel wouldn't let it do anything less. He was a model for the benevolent dictator and knew what a good God should be about!

Postel Center: About Jon Postel

People I Honor: Chuck Moore

I poked around the Forth programming language in the 1980's and really enjoyed it. It really seems to work better with my brain, which strangely acts more like a computer than I suppose other brains do. That was when I first ran into Chuck Moore, who created Forth.

It is simple, it is efficient, it is very, very different, and it is (perhaps above all) esoteric. These are all descriptors of me! I am Forth!

I think Chuck is one of the most unique minds around, which I like immensely. His brain is just wired differently and I feel a kinship there. He has also been accused of being clinically insane, which I probably have been as well.

Chuck Moore's Weblog

Getting the Best of "31 Flavors"

I was a kid in Clovis, New Mexico and one of the things that my family did occasionally, as a treat, was visit the local Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Shop.  They had all those flavors (31 varieties was advertised at the time) and I could get a scoop of anything I wanted, although I was very, very shy and always went conservative with "Rocky Road" or some such.  It was a nice memory and good ice cream!

I don't know when I noticed it, but I finally figured out the concept of "taste spoons".  I suppose I was watching other kids and they would buzz around the counter like flies and constantly ask for a stream of free tastes of ice cream.  It didn't take me long to decide that these little devils were working some kind of pre-adolescent scam, abusing the marketing generosity of the shop just to "score" some free ice cream with no intention of ever really legitimately buying anything.

The shop in Clovis is now closed and I can only think it was because too much ice cream was being doled out for free on tiny taste spoons and not enough ice cream was getting purchased.  The whole point of the shop was selling ice cream products, not handing out an unlimited stream of free samples.  Promotional tastes of ice cream are fine, but at some point, you have to discriminate between paying customers and thieves that are taking your stock away one plastic spoon at a time!

This brings up a certain class of people that I absolutely abhor:  "free-stuff" hucksters.  People getting ice cream for free one tiny spoon at a time is just one example.  You have surely seen others.  There are the people selling intricate information about how to get grants and interest-free loans from the government by posing as something they are not.  There are the people who show you how to spend your life cutting coupons and saving hundreds of dollars on groceries that they would normally never have bought.  I have even heard of a guy that sells the free baseball caps he hoards at fairs and farm shows on eBay as his sole source of income!

These things are not illegal of course, but I find them distracting to the sort of honest life people might be living.  It is all just a variant of the classic "get-rich-quick" scheme designed for gullible people with, in this case, little "scamming" money.  Of course, people can spend their time on whatever they choose, but I hope there are better things to do with time and effort than trying to save or make a few pennies by working some small hustle.  For some people, this "free ride" becomes a severely limited lifestyle and desire is lost for a better, more expansive and fulfilling future.

The Hunt for a Cheap, Long, Light Sleeping Bag

I don't even like to talk about how many sleeping bags I have.

For years, in my camping and hiking adventures, pathetic though they may seem, I have always struggled with the problem of sleeping bags.  I am too tall apparently, and only relatively short people are supposed to do such things.  Of course, I am an anomaly in a lot of ways from other camper/hikers (besides all the other anomalies I have generally with humans), as I prefer my equipment ultra-cheap and relatively light, in that order.  If I pay more than $50 for a piece of equipment, I must really, really think it is going to save the world or some such.

Over time, I have collected an assortment of bags, each with features I had hoped that I would like, hoping one day to stumble upon that "holy grail" of fit, comfort, and utility.  Lightning hasn't struck yet, but even so far as yesterday, I keep trying.

Of course, when it comes to sleeping bags, cheap and light rarely come together.  I am told that part of the fun of camping and hiking is the procurement and testing of new equipment, but I have never gotten into that aspect particularly.  If a bag is lightweight, it costs a ton, as it is typically stuffed with down (a whole bunch of it) or contains some new-fangled synthetic batting that hasn't come down in cost yet.  The cheap bags end up being crammed full of shredded jeans or other recycled fluffy stuff (they may even have an asbestos one for all I know), so they end up weighing 5 or 6 pounds.  That's heavy, as Marty McFly would say on several levels.

Then, you couple that with the length issue.  I am 6'3'' tall and standard bags are cut all wrong for me, just like beds, pants, and just about everything else that seems to be standardized back in the days when 5'0" must have been the average height.  Tall bags are definitely made, but they seem to be a specialty item and the price reflects that.  By nature, a tall bag needs more material and more batting to cover more area, so it will also be heavier than standard, to add insult to injury.

Some cheap, tall, and light bags are actually starting to make an appearance, but I can now add a new criteria to the mix:  thermal rating!  The bag that meet my original criteria are often only rather down to 50 degrees and get described as "summer-only" bags.  That really doesn't work for me because I often car-camp on into the edges of winter, ending as late as December and picking up again as early as February.  However, as my lovely wife will attest, I am one hot-blooded guy and put out heat like a furnace, so I higher-temp-rated bag might actually work for me out of its intended season.  This would be the first example of a hope that I have always had about life which I call the Psychic Proximity Principle:  You will gravitate toward a place and circumstance that actually fit you and your nature.

So, I am brought back to the cunundrum.  But, I happened to be a Sam's Club yesterday and they had a Coleman 4-in-1 sleeping bag for about $30.  Of course, it weighs like it is filled with rocks, but I bought it and will try it out tonight for the car-camping that I do when I overnight for my work.  I have yet to even try a bag made for tall people (they say it works up to 6'6" or 6'4" depending on who you ask) and I am hoping it goes well.  I am really tired of having to fold myself like a pretzel to fit in a bag and stay warm!


Update:  Well, I used the bag on 8/3, but it was so hot all night long that I just opened it out and slept atop it.  It has a nice-feeling liner, which you can take out and use separately, which is one of its selling points.  So, I cannot say if it even fits, but I am hanging onto it.