A New Day

After my annual eye checkup at the Dean McGee Eye Institute last week (nothing’s changed), my doctor recommended I see a geneticist for further testing. Because Stargardt’s Disease is just one of many similar vision conditions, they can’t definitively diagnose it without performing genetic testing. Part of me thinks that because there’s no cure or treatment there’s not much point in having the test performed, but if or when a treatment is ever developed, a person would need to have already had genetic testing performed. In terms of how this may eventually help my prognosis, I put it up there… (read more)

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Back to School

Last Thursday, Mason and Morgan went back to school. Today, it was my turn. This semester I’ll be taking three graduate classes: Commercial Nonfiction, Graduate Tutorial in Writing, and Epublishing, for a total of eight credit hours. I suppose it’s not very cool to admit that I am looking forward to each of these classes. (I’m okay with that.) In Commercial Nonfiction Book, we’ll be going through the process of planning, writing, pitching and marketing a nonfiction book. I know there are things I could have done to make Commodork and Invading Spaces better, and with other nonfiction books in… (read more)

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21 and 43

Last Friday, my wife and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. Yesterday, I turned 43-years-old. For our anniversary, Susan and I took a few hours off from work and drove out to Norman to run a couple of last minute errands before the spring semester begins. While in Norman I picked up my parking pass, and gave Susan a tour of every part of the OU campus I am familiar with: the Gaylord Building, and the parking garage that sits across from it. Before we left, we took a selfie from the top of the parking garage, with some of… (read more)

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Goodbye, Rio Olympics!

Yesterday over dinner my mother asked me how much of the 2016 Rio Olympics I had watched over the past two weeks. My response? “Every minute of them.” Obviously, that wasn’t entirely possible. Over the past two weeks there have been times when Olympic events were being broadcast on up to four different cable channels. With events on two channels and that “last channel watched” button on my remote control, I was able to flip back and forth and keep up. When they were broadcasting events on three channels simultaneously, I had to pick and choose — and when there… (read more)

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Star Wednesday: Kenny Baker’s Autograph

I don’t own many autographed items. I have one Atari 2600 cartridge signed by the programmer (Yars’ Revenge, by Howard Scott Warshaw), a show brochure I had autographed by David Copperfield in the mid-1980s, and three books signed by their respective authors: hacker Kevin Mitnick, magicians Penn and Teller, and my writing professor, Deborah Chester. The only other autographs that I have belong to people who appeared in Star Wars films. I have five action figures autographed by the people who played them in the films: David Prowse (Darth Vader), Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), Anthony Daniels (C-3P0),… (read more)

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Releasing an Apple IIe’s Magic Smoke

On July 21, 2016, Ancient Legends was released for Apple II home computers. The game is similar in design to classic role playing games from the 1980s like Ultima and Bard’s Tale, and I was greatly looking forward to trying it out on my vintage Apple IIe computer. A few years ago I purchased a CFFA3000 card for my Apple II. The CFFA3000 card allows owners to play Apple II disk images stored on a USB stick. I paid approximately $200 (including the additional remote and shipping) for my CFFA3000, and $1.48 for the computer at a thrift store. I’m… (read more)

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How (Not) to Get Rid of Things

I’ve written 50,000 words on my next book, A Collector of Collections. The more I write, the more I begin to suspect that I’m less of a collector and more of a hoarder. Many of the things I claim to collect are just things I’ve amassed over time and can’t seem to part with. Last Friday, I decided to take a stand. Last Friday, I decided to get rid of something. Anything. With gusto, I walked over to my toy shelves and scanned them for something I could get rid of. Just one thing. Anything. After looking for a minute… (read more)

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Twists and Turns

Ten years ago (or was it fifteen?) I got a Dremel for Christmas. I wanted a Dremel, because I saw my friend Andy using one and it looked useful. If you’ve never seen one, a Dremel is a wand-shaped tool that spins really fast. You can put attachments on the end and use it to cut, grind, sand, and drill stuff. Below my desk is a plastic briefcase full of “blending” markers. A couple of years ago, I watched someone on YouTube draw using a set of blending markers. It fascinated me. The next day I went to Hobby Lobby… (read more)

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When Memories Meet Scissors

Last night, my wife opened up a storage tub of t-shirts I’ve been saving for twenty years and, using a pair of scissors, systematically cut each one of them in half as I squirmed and watched. The majority of shirts in the tub were concert t-shirts, most of which I purchased at concerts decades ago. There were Danzig, Stone Temple Pilots, Motley Crue, Faith No More, Pantera, and a whole lot of Metallica shirts in the tub. Almost all of the ones I purchased at concerts had Oklahoma City listed as one of the tour dates on the back of… (read more)

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Star Wednesday: A Plastic C-3P0 and Orange Rex

Every time the word “Commodore” appears on my local Craigslist, I receive an email alert. Sometimes the alerts link to people selling cars or boats, but most of the time, it’s the computer. I received one such alert last Friday night, informing me about a computer for sale at a garage sale. I need another Commodore 64 like I need a hole in the head, and the one pictured in the ad looked pretty sad (incomplete and with a few mismatched parts), but where there’s smoke, as they say, there’s often fire. Sometimes literally. I didn’t make it down to… (read more)

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