Okay, we are now three weeks in to the whole broken finger thing. I’ve now gone the better part of the last two weeks without (I think) causing additional damage by getting it tangled in shoe laces or jammed against something that doesn’t move. With that said, I’ve taken to doing some of the typing I do (today, technical) without the splint on. This does not last a long time as I can tell the finger still needs a splint, but it is nice to not have to think about where the pinky is pointing when I am typing. Very nice.

On top of that, I’ve re-realized my lone gun nature. Sure, I am getting married and I love spending time with Erin, but when it comes down to integrating people in to my life, it is a bit more difficult than meets the eye. Some people get to be integrated; the others get to be a part of my life because of Erin and for little other purpose. This, by the by, can be a bone of contention as I am just as happy getting up, going to work, hanging out with Erin (and her brother) and then going home and going back to bed – and far more comfortable with that than going out and finding new people to associate with.

This actually reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my ecclesiastical leaders some years ago (younger than 30, older than Erin) that led him to tell me, “John, sometimes you have to just be a part of a group and not say anything. Let people decide they like you and then go and do things with them.” At the time I actually threw a Casablanca party as that is one of my all-time most favorite movies. There was a good turnout, but at the same time, I don’t (really) know any of those people anymore…. I was thinking my buddy Dave showed up, but he was getting married soon after that (Sept. 14, 2001) and he and his fiancé were committed elsewhere. I hosted a party all on my lonesome in my apartment for people. It was an interesting experience.

Hosting a party, though, isn’t an indicator of desire to change; merely a need to expand my view on life. Not long after this I would start to actually date (after going broke, moving to Colorado, then to Layton with a stint in Sandy, UT) a lot and then I moved to New Hampshire where, interestingly, I went on one date the entire time I was there. I wonder how that girl is doing? Last I heard she was in Albuquerque, but as a traveling nurse, you shift around a lot.

Anyway, lone wolf, lone gun, single-with-a-purpose, that’s me. And yet, as a part of that, I am opening myself up to new adventures, new people, and new experiences because that’s what you do when you get married. New people enter your life.

As an aside, you’d think that with all the moving that I’ve done in the past I would be expert at making friends; when, in reality, I am good at keeping the people I like around me and being friendly to the people who are in my life.

However, that is only a part of what is going on. Moving away from my loner nature you get in to some of the things that are more web-oriented. As you’ve noticed, by now, this website is now mother friendly, though not as exciting, to me, as it was. I do like the simplistic look of the site and may end up applying something similar when I get other websites up and running far better.

One of those other websites is taking on a life of its own. Granted, you may not be able to really see a lot of changes, but inordertowrite.com is actually moving forward. I decided, today, to get rid of the old software that I was running, create a new database for the upgrade (still in beta 2 release, but very nice looking) and run the v. 1.5 of Joomla! on the site. This, interestingly, is something that I think I enjoyed doing as I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the uber simple nature of the earlier release of that software. People keep telling me this is one of the ways to go, and I kept beating my head against user documentation as well as configuration, and then started to read what different things did and, while at work, decided to install the beta 2 1.5 release of the software to see if it was more compatible than the stuff I’d been trying to configure.

Go figure, it is far easier to use. I like to not have to think about how things function and just use them which makes the site that much easier to use.

Of course, the hinter side of that is the 200 page user manual for the older version of the software is now obsolete and a waste of 200 pages of paper and the toner needed to print it and I will have to look out for a new user manual if I get stuck; but the forums appear to be nice, the software is very scaleable, and I am liking the direction it is taking me in.

Watch for it, when the changes come they will be quick and hard and fast and interesting.

As that has been said, I am now going to shift focus from the internet to another piece of software I am using so I can continue to work on the book I am now writing. I have (I think) at least two solid outlines that have to be written and, really, three that I know have to be written to make the story flow just right. The problem with this story is that things have to mesh just right which means that at any given point I, as the author, needs to know where the principle characters are and what they are doing. Many outlines contain information for one character with jotted information about what might be happening for others; in my wildest imaginings, though, I envision being able to write the same book from the characters point of view and have it be equally as good as the other (though radically different).

The only thing I can say about that is seeing the end from the beginning; or is it the beginning from the end? I can never remember… or can I?

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond

Nothing overtly significant happened yesterday. We, and by that I mean Erin, her brother, and me went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End yesterday. That was, pretty much, the highlight of the day, outside of transferring all of my parents wedding announcement/invitation lists to Erin’s database so we can then go through them and determine who gets invites and who gets announcements. Its all very, really, exciting.

As for the movie, I probably need to sit down and write a review, later. However, I will share Erin’s feelings: she wanted to see it, but didn’t feel the long running time was worth being able to say she’d seen it. Ultimately, we really decided that the movie was good, but really needed to have been scaled back before production – which was also one of my many thoughts on the second movie – to make it a lot easier to watch and experience than it was. In the end, good movie that runs too long. I don’t believe I, really, plan to see it again – though I told my mom that she should watch II one night and watch III the following night and that, with that kind of dedication, it might make for a really good movie.

Erin and I did get back to the gym, finally, last night. We tried out a new machine that caused me to hurt in the thighs so bad I had to pretty much stop earlier than I’d intended and go to a different machine (treadmill) and walk until Erin was done with what she was doing. Apparently, and this is still weird news to me (though I was unable to argue against the logic applied) Gold’s Gym has a women’s only section where women can go to exercise without having to worry about men ogling their hinter regions. While Erin did this I plugged in to the system of TV monitors (headphones) and listened to the final episode of Band of Brothers the HBO series that aired a few years ago (pre-east coast for me… thinking about that, pre- a lot of things for me) as they were wrapping up World War II. When Erin came out (less time than she guestimated) we left. Because of the first machine we were on, I was very happy to not be there anymore.

That’s about it for this entry. It’s a couple of days late. That is my fault. More recent/accurate entry later.

In 1947 people claim that a UFO, possibly, crashed outside of Roswell, NM. The most direct outcome of this alleged crash is not whether or not the crash occurred; I absolutely believe that there was a crash – however, military film from the late 40’s, many of the high-altitude experiments resemble the modern and current images of UFO’s. However, in 1947, the public wasn’t really worried about unidentified flying objects. According to reports, they didn’t even care.

You see, the unidentified flying object is a term meant to suggest that the individual, you, does not recognize what the object in the sky is. This does not, in any way, denote that said object is from outer-space. It does suggest that the individual(s) viewing the object doesn’t know what it is.

The military, though often closed mouth, does not share with the public the experimental craft they are working on. When an experimental object is seen in the sky it is often a shape or moving at a speed that is unfamiliar to the viewer. As a result, the person reports a flying object. The news catches hold of this and the next thing you know the object isn’t just something in the sky – swamp gas – but rather that the object is of extra-terrestrial origin and as a result, people start to believe in alien originated UFO’s.

What makes this relevant is that the town of Roswell is now trying to build an amusement park. They look at the draw to the town, UFO’s, and build upon the imagination and paranoia of the population to bring them to the area. They are building on a town’s notoriety to make a buck and draw tourists.

I’ve been to Roswell. Gotta tell you, for me the bigger draw is its proximity to Carlsbad Caverns and not the whole UFO thing. I like the caverns. They are very neat. You go in to this very large open space and can get lost and, to top it off, it is considered one of the largest natural cave systems in the world.

And yet, it is not much of a draw to most of the rest of the world. Aliens, that is.

The connection to Salem, MA is that Salem has done very much the same thing. Find a draw or an attraction and then manipulate the population so that they come, again and again, and you have a winning combination. At least, you have a combination that draws attention to an aspect of the town, culture, environment; and those items are not always positive. The Salem Witch trials are a blot on New England, on early American colonists, on Christian religions, on pretty much everything.

So, a couple of years ago Andy and Debbie hired a nanny to come and watch the girls as I’d taken a new job that required me to spend most of my life about an hour away from Pembroke, NH working for Fidelity. However, on the holidays and weekends I’d take the nanny to see things she wanted to see. One of these was Salem, MA. When we got to Salem we ended up joining a walking ghost tour of the area.

The lady running the tour showed us places where people were killed as a result of the trials. Where the women were held captive while waiting for the trials to happen. And she told people who to look for after taking pictures to find ghosts. Because of the trials, the area, according to local lore, is haunted.

Instead of finding something positive to sell Salem, they bring the negative aspects of the town and shove them down the throats of people who want to believe in anything. People can believe in anything and the towns of Salem and Roswell can sell themselves in whatever way helps local businesses to grow. The outcome, though, isn’t whether or not they can sell themselves in any way they want; it is whether or not they should sell themselves in the way they are.

In my opinion, selling Salem to people who believe in witchcraft and Roswell to people who believe in aliens is a bad thing. It misleads the public into something without substance. You cannot walk away from Salem with evidence of witches or ghosts; and, apparently, the town has become a haven (especially at Halloween) for those who would trick-or-treat; while Roswell has become a place for UFO enthusiasts to gather and hope/pray for some green (or gray) skinned alien to come and abduct them.

There is very little that can be done to prove to me that Salem is a center for witchcraft; or that Roswell is, somehow, the center of some massive UFO conspiracy (or for that matter Area 51 is a special test and research area where humans and aliens cavort in hybrid technology). For me, the evidence suggests that Salem was on drugs and Roswell was a place where the military conducted experiments to better understand new and emerging technologies. We’d won the war and as a result received access to German scientists and German technology and German advancements. This is important. Our advances in both rockets and jets came as a result of getting the scientists who helped the Nazi party be as successful as it was.

And yet we, meaning people, look for things that are not verifiable, not recognizable, not anything-able and expect that we should be taken seriously. As I write this, I can see that you can take many of these arguments and apply them against religion. And yet, most faiths and sects don’t open amusement parks or sell their towns on the negative aspects of their religious history. We don’t see Spain selling the Spanish Inquisition to the world as a draw – “Come and see the places we murdered Muslims and Jews.”

You don’t hear Rome announcing that you should come and see where more than a thousand years of religious upheaval and change has done; and though the Jewish Holocaust does draw thousands and millions of people to various sights around the world, these are not advertised sites nor do people overtly try to make money off of the pain and loss. Sure, there is money to be made in loss, but that money doesn’t mean we have to advertise loss in order to get attention.

In the case of Salem, I think the witch connection makes the selling of the town bad. It is bad form and in bad taste. As for Roswell, well… what can you say about that? Crazy people doing crazy things? I mean, I can see the draw to Salem if that is your thing; and I can see the draw to Roswell if you believe in alien visitation; but to sell alien visitation through an amusement park just seems to be taking it that one extra-illogical-step. I think it’s a bad idea.

You know, I have an opinion here; but in having that opinion I cannot decry the town from building something that will improve the economic conditions of the region. The economy of Roswell isn’t, always, the best. The one time I actually spent time there, I was driving semis. I went to the mall and didn’t see any Aliens. Accordingly, though, I guess if I was abducted I’d have to recover the memory.

I’ve met, over the years, people who claim alien abduction. The first time was at this Boy Scout camp I was dragged to that was not Tahoya where it was members of the LDS church who were also scouts – and their fathers and leaders. I didn’t want to be there as I’ve spent most of my life being anti-Boy Scout; however, one of the men claimed to have been abducted by aliens.

When I was 18 I had an experience where I was being toyed with by something unidentified until the military stopped toying with me and I could make out the helicopter out on maneuvers. The point is that yes, we do have experiences that are not always understood. At the same time, this does not denote spirits, ghosts, or aliens. It does denote that the person or people in question are not aware of all the factors going on and, illogically, leap to conclusions that do not necessarily answer the data at hand.

By building an amusement park and minimalizing the insanity, you remove responsibility for what has/is taking place. In the case of Roswell, building to reward the insanity is not helpful; in the case of Salem, advertising the negative history does not help us learn or grow from our mistakes.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond

I re-found, the other day, a site that trawls the internet and caches copies of peoples pages. The outcome is that you can search for your site, if it existed – once upon a time – and locate images of what websites once looked like. As a result of this neat, interesting, weird little contraption, I located images of my website (this one) from what I will refer to as “back in the day.” Yes, from those early days when it looked simple and was meant to work as a portal for my technical writing freelance operation known as — StandingWater Creations.

You are duly impressed.

This, however, still does not explain the name StandingWater Creations to anyone — and ain’t it a good thing that an explanation is the least of my worries.

The result, though, was memories to an easier, nicer, more relaxed time. Yes. Back to Movable Type 2.6.?. Back before Jack decided to upgrade to 3. Back before I realized that the website would be better served as a portal of information to the family. Back before the idea that moving to New Hampshire might’ve been a monumental mistake (it wasn’t, but I did go through a spell there).

Anyway, as you will already, no doubt, have noticed, I’ve gone to a more white background color scheme. You may be curious as to why I chose to move in this direction and the answer is… well, I looked at the original format of the site and I really liked it. Sure, I can make a million and two changes, odds-n-ends, get my mother and others all riled up, have them call and e-mail me to tell me it is not visually friendly, and play with all sorts of other scenarios; but truth told, I like the look. Plain and simple.

In the past few weeks, I’ve not really liked the changes. I didn’t like the last major change (however long ago it was) that I made. And really, installing pre-configured templates to the site isn’t always compatible with some of the new code I have sitting in places. I mean, it was really kind of a pain to update to the three-column thing I have going on now (fortunately, if it annoys me I saved the original two-column code).

But website information isn’t really what you’re interested in… admit it. You came back here to read something else… come on? come on? you know you want to admit it.

Anyway, I was surfing through those cached images of the website and discovered, of all things, that I had (or is it still has) problems with my flakey nature. Part of the problem with this showed up this morning as I considered just how much I wanted to be working and where I would rather be on a day like this. One of the place that came to mind was The Married Apartment sleeping on the futon until Erin got done with work.

I decided to go to work anyway. There is something about wanting to provide and working hard to put myself in a position to do that that makes the adventure of getting up and going to work one that is exciting and fun and enjoyable and other things. So, I showered and didn’t shave and put on clean clothes (at least I think they are clean) and then drove in to work and got here right on time.

Erin is working from home today. Good thing I decided to go to work.

On top of which, I am considering pulling all of the books off of the shelves and taking the shelves (and as a result, the books) to The Married Apartment for its (for now) permanent home. The writing desk went over earlier this week, and chair, which was rather interesting as I had to take down one of the shelves to get at some packing material and now have stacks of books on my floor waiting for me to decide what to do with them. Along with that, I have a lot of art material, sketches, paper, oil-stuff, modeling things, that all need a new home and that I thought about taking to Erin’s as well, but left them all sitting right where they were as I didn’t feel like getting out of bed one second before I had to for work.

Of course, I’ve got two books coming in the mail this afternoon (they may already be at the place I am currently living) and I want to pick them up which may also include my going and grabbing the bulk of the art supplies and maybe seeing if the one roommate with a truck would be willing to help me move the base bookshelves tomorrow, first thing.

Anyway, I am rambling and mostly that to avoid doing what I’m meant to be doing.

Oh, oh, oh, Erin and I, last night, started looking for a picture (mostly Erin) for her website. You can go over and see the new picture she has posted as what she feels her website is all about. Anyway, we started gathering images for download to add to the In Order to Write site when we get it closer to launching. Tonight, time willing, we may sit down and go over the structure we want to see take place.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond

Well, in case anyone really needed to know, my little finger is still busted and still wrapped up. Over last weekend I did everything I could to hurt it more without really trying which has, interestingly enough, caused me to keep it wrapped and bandaged far more (now) than I was the prior week. Truth told, I don’t like the fact that I have this finger broken, that it is broken on my dominant hand, that I can’t do a lot of things I’d normally just do (like washing dishes or turning wrenches on my car), and having to rely on other people for the dirty/wet things in my life. It’s not fun for me.

On top of that I was dropping things when I was picking them up with my right hand. This I blame on the broken finger… of course, I also blamed mistyping on the broken finger… and other things… the point is that it sucks, bad, to have a broken finger. It really sucks, jsyk, to not have full use of the hand. My mom was trying to commiserate with me the other day telling me we didn’t always realize just how much we use something like a pinky finger until use of the finger is not longer available to us. Interestingly, I’ve discovered that its primary use, when typing, was to do this strange finger-acrobatic act with the keyboard and run a lot of things with the shift or right control and keys that were all the way across the keyboard. Didn’t know any part of my body was that flexible… and I am pretty stinking flexible. I guess the real outcome has been more concentration on how I type/write longhand and this hovering thing that is happening when I type (at least with the right hand) that is actually quite tiring. No more holding the right wrist on the desk as I type – and yet nothing has really changed with the left hand except that it gets more of the “SHIFT” key work when I type.

That is for the little finger. It takes forever, or at least it feels like it, to type anything. Granted, I probably still type faster than most people (around me) but that doesn’t mean I am used to slowing down because of a hurt digit.

I woke up this morning to my alarm and a wet cold. I don’t know if wet and cold work together as a descriptor of what was going on, but it feels about right. Normally I have a fan running to block out most of the noise my roommates produce, but that got turned off sometime between midnight and four a.m. Waking up was cold, in part I think, because I have all of the windows in my room open to let air flow through. Since the winter temps were rather dismal (in the room) and the house has both a/c and heat, I figure a fan and open windows might help me keep a reasonable temperature. I guess time will tell.

Anyway, last night Erin and I went to pick up the bed that was purchased for her brother who is coming to stay the summer (and maybe longer). Erin is excited and I am happy he is coming. We couldn’t find anyone to help us or loan us a truck, though I am not certain we were really trying all that hard, and ended up tying the bed to the top of my car and driving very really slowly back to The Married Apartment with the hazards running. On the drive I started talking about some of the mechanical work that needed to be done on my car and lamenting the fact that I wasn’t comfortable spending the money on parts since my hand was a little damaged. Erin suggested 1) that I wait until my hand is better to do the work; 2) let her do the work as I supervise; and 3) get her brother to do the work as he is a rather savvy individual.

I didn’t want to do any of the three and eventually talked my way around to waiting, though the conversation did hover over letting her or her brother do the work for a period of time. This, by the by, was right after a short conversation about my dad and how he prefers to do most things himself because in doing it yourself you can control quality and timing; but by outsourcing or getting help from other people, like members of a religious congregation or neighbors, you remove the ability to control all aspects. Working on cars, believe it or not, is a rather personal thing for me and a challenge to actually start the work; and, once that is established, to figure/logic/discover how something can be fixed.

So, I decided to wait until I have (relatively) full use of my hand. I can contract out construction work, but dagnabit, I won’t let someone else touch my cars. (This is not entirely true.)

Then we talked about money.

Wanna put me on edge, fast, ask me to talk about money. I hate it. This, however, does not mean that I don’t want to talk about money, or make plans, I just hate the idea of talking about money and creating a budget. It causes weird things to happen inside of the thing that is me. However, Erin and I created our plan and I will go back to BYU and reschedule my class load for the Fall so she can finish and in the Winter I will re-up my load so I can finish as soon after Erin graduates as possible.

Getting married is a lot of fun. Just ask someone who isn’t getting married two-and-a-half minutes after meeting the person they’ve decided to marry, has had time to get used to the individual, and realizes that the whole married-scenario isn’t going to come together all nice and tight wrapped in a little package with a large bow on top and an ice-cream cone to top it all off. You have to work at things.

Of course, this reminds me that one of my aunts, moms side, told Erin and I that getting married was the start of something that was very hard and would lead to a lifetime of disappointment. I know, in advance, that I am not paraphrasing it properly; but all either of us could do, at the time, was smile. I wondered (and still wonder) what kind of a life she led that she felt like her marriage was bad and required more work than would reward her with positive feelings. The couples I know that I admire work at the marriages, but they aren’t upset or mad about being married. This aunt, though sad for other reasons, acted as though her marriage had been a burden she wasn’t meant to carry.

Granted, Erin and I don’t have the secret of success, but we do understand that we have to wake up every morning and decide that this is the person we love, that we want to be married, and that we want to work on our lives together. We understand that this is something that requires work and effort and time and commitment; but we started out deciding that we wanted to be together and that this isn’t a commitment meant for a couple of months or a few years but for the rest of our lives (and because we share the same religious beliefs) into eternity. We are in this together.

So, we sit down and talk about money and I push aside, or try to… I’m not certain I’ve been super-successful… the feelings associated with talking about money and we talk. We plan. We look into the future and we see what we have to do to pull together, not apart, and what we can do to make it as pleasant for the other person as possible.

I feel sorry for that aunt.

Okay, I’ve been wandering with this update. Have some ideas for some future updates – but part of that comes from my having gone out and found cached copies of my domain from back in the beginning – and comments I made over the years. However, that is all for today.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Denny Crane | Bond. James Bond

Erin wanted a hotdog last night. She didn’t say, when we were practically parked in the front of a hotdog restaurant that she wanted one; rather, she said she wanted one as we were looking for a mythical used and new furniture store so she could see if there were any dressers she might want. This after I moved my desk, chair, speakers, and extra power supply (for my computer) to her house because – logically – I spend more time there than my house and it makes sense to work where I am (practically) living at the moment.

So, Erin wants a hotdog. She practically starts to chant it. I think, “Let’s go to the small hotdog shack near where she used to live.” What I didn’t know is that it was/is a cash only business AND if there are no students actively walking past, it isn’t open. As I don’t carry cash, as a rule, and Erin only had two-bucks (they charge more) and it was closed that was a bust.

The outcome: we drove back in to Orem to the HotDog King: The World’s Greatest Hotdogs, parked the car and walked in. We walk inside. They are closing, but the owner tells us he will serve us and then takes our order. I get two brats off the bun but with all of the bits on the side; Erin gets two American dogs – loaded. She eats the first and can’t eat the second. Midway through the meal, the owner asks if we’d be willing to buy X number more dogs and I agree since he’s offering a couple of incentives.

They were good. The place was nice. Not super-uber-hyper-clean and sterile; but rather, comfortable and nice to be in. As customers Erin and I felt like we actually belonged there. And, given time and effort, the owner was someone I think you could just become friends with. He struck me as the kind of person who is interested in people and wants to connect to (and with) them, remembering what you ordered so he can do it right the next time your in.

If’n you’re in the Provo/Orem area and want a good brat or dog, I would highly suggest stopping by. His address is: 1708 S State Street, Orem, UT 84097-1766. Totally worth the trip, the money, and the experience.