Category: Reflections

Back when I was in college, I used to run Dungeons & Dragons for my friends. This was more than 40 years ago, well before the game was fully created.

Adventure
So what I needed to do was to create most of the adventures that the group would encounter. I’m a creative guy, so I was able to do this. The adventures were mediaeval — a bit like Game of Thrones. My friends liked the Dungeons & Dragons that I used to run.

I would come up with these complex battles/adventures along the way. The group needed to get past these, and move forward toward the next challenge.

Riddles
One thing that I would do was create riddles, where the correct answer gave the group a benefit. I have most of these riddles on my writing site.

Career
I started my career as an engineer, but I evolved to being a program manager. It’s interesting because being a program manager, in some ways, is similar to runnings Dungeons & Dragons. I communicate the end goals, and help move the contributors toward those goals.

Dreams
Another interesting thing is that I have complex dreams that are similar to Dungeons & Dragons. When I wake up, I’m a little surprised by the crazy complex dreams that I’ve had. They are sort of science fictiony, but they aren’t too sciencey. They are sometimes mediaeval — like a Game of Thrones adventure.

Summary
I find it interesting that running an adventure has been part of my life. I started this in college, did it as a career, and I now have complex dreams that are very similar.

When I went to college, I ended up at a university that allowed illegal (pre 21) alcohol drinking. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — a few hours south of Chicago. I wasn’t a partier in high school, but that changed once I made it to college.

Illegal Drinking
The university was between two adjacent cities. In one city, they would allow people to enter bars if they were 19. And the other city, they would allow people to enter bars if they were 18. Once you were in a bar, they would not check your ID to serve your alcohol. So essentially, the drinking age was 18. There were maybe half a dozen bars in these cities on the edge of campus.

Another characteristic was that my university had the biggest Greek system in the country — the most fraternities and sororities. We knew people in those fraternities and sororities, so we were often invited to parties at these places. 

So essentially, it was easy to party and drink alcohol.

Quart per Quarter
One of the bars had an event that they called Quart per Quarter. This meant that if you drink a quart of beer each quarter of a football game, then you would get a prize at the end (a T-shirt?) This is a lot of beer to drink during a three hour period of time. I did this once, but I threw up in the bathroom midway through the football game.

21
The other overlay is that I was the oldest of my roommates. So when I turned 21, I was the one who would go to the liquor stores to buy alcohol. I would always buy the cheapest beer. 

Once when I was in a bar with friends, I was the only one who was 21. The police came in (possibly because they were trying to undo what the bars were doing) and they checked everyone’s IDs. Since I was the only one in my group who was 21, I got a ticket — because they assumed I had purchased alcohol for my friends.

Summary
It was easy to party at my university. Maybe things have changed, but honestly, I don’t know. 

I’ve been diagnosed with ALS — a terminal degenerative neuro-muscular disease.

The common expectation is 2 to 5 years of life after diagnosis. They were a little late to diagnose me, so I’m guessing it’s more like 1.5 to 4.5 years for me.

DIAGNOSIS
It was interesting to diagnose me. They would say: do five squats, and I would do them. And then they would say: you don’t have ALS. But of course they were wrong. My legs are still surprisingly capable. 

I went to a physical therapist, and each time, even though I tried to improve, I could do less. On the third visit, the physical therapist said ‘I need to talk to your doctor.’

Finally, an ALS neurologist zapped my nerves with a device, and concluded that I had ALS. I was diagnosed about a year ago.

SYMdPTOMS
I lost 20 pounds of muscle. My inability now is with my arms. My hands are somewhat capable, but my arms can’t really do much. This means that my wife has to help feed me, dress me, and shower me. We have hired a gardener and a housekeeper – so my wife has a bit more availability.

The challenges is: if I happen to trip and fall, my arms aren’t capable of preventing me from injuring my head. This has happened three times — three times in the emergency room with injuries to my head.

Also, my lung capacity has degraded. So I find that my energy level is low. Plus, the oxygen to my brain has diminished, which impacts my memory.

BENEFITS 
The ALS organization provided a free powered wheelchair. It’s actually pretty beneficial. It only weighs 40 pounds, and it easily folds up — so we keep it in the trunk of the car. It took me a bit to accept that this was something to use. I’ve now become OK with using it. The wheelchair has the ability to travel 9 miles, which is a big distance.

Because I have a terminal disease, and use the wheelchair, I’ve been identified as disabled. We have a sticker that we hang from the car rear view mirror. That gives us the benefit of parking in disabled parking slots, which are close to the entrance of the stores, restaurants, etc.

IMPACT
I am taking anti-depression medication, plus I have a pragmatic head, so I’m not swirling about my situation. It is what it is.

I recently had a feeding tube installed in my abdomen. This provides the ability to add calories if my ability to eat through my mouth declines. Three days after it was installed, I accidentally pulled it out. We rushed to the hospital ER to get it reinstalled — which went quite well.

I feel bad for my wife. I worked full-time for decades, and now that I’m walking away from my job, I won’t be around for very long. She committed her life to me, so I feel bad that I’m parting ways in a few years.

It’s actually a bit weird. Of my siblings and my parents, I’ll be the youngest one to die. 

CAUSE
When you search for the causes of ALS, there isn’t a lot of good information. One cause is chemical exposure. The house that I grew up in had an alley behind it where they would spray pesticides once a year. Also, I worked a couple summers at my dad‘s chemical warehouse, but the chemicals that we packaged weren’t particularly impactful. Plus, my next older brother also worked at that same warehouse.

Another cause is athleticism. Professional athletes sometimes get ALS. I’ve always been a runner, including running 10 miles every other day in college. But I wasn’t a professional athlete.

A third cause is metal exposure. I do have some fillings in my teeth. Plus, i did have a metal rod in my shin bone when I broke it in college.

SUMMARY 
It’s a bit unfortunate that they don’t have a specific cause for ALS, or a treatment for the disease. It’s sad to be diagnosed with a terminal disease, but I have no control over it. My goal is to make the most of the rest of my life.

OVERALL
I am creative, and have an engineering head. These two factors feed my ability to do things like: build/fix things around the house, and also build interesting (but silly) creative things – like Halloween decorations.

When I plan for Halloween, I can envision some interesting end results, but one overlay (because I am a thorough thinker) is to ensure that whatever I build can be easily and compactly stored – so it doesn’t take up a lot of space between Halloweens. My creations all store compactly in my garage. (I see houses in my neighborhood that have so many Christmas decorations that they must: Rent the decorations? Rent a storage facility? Fill their entire garage most of the year?)

HAUNTED HOUSE

Overall
Years ago, I used to do a haunted house in my garage. The entire neighborhood loved it. It was a maze (dark, with scary music playing) with a dozen stops along the way. The maze was framed with PVC pipes, with black plastic hanging down as walls.

Items
Some of the interesting stops in the maze were: an alien baby incubator (an aquarium with mirrored sides giving the impression of an infinite number of babies), Dracula, Frankenstein (with his heart and brain uninstalled), a ghost, a scary clown, mutilated dolls (my daughter’s idea), etc.

Scary (Fake) Hole
But the most interesting one was my ‘Well of Lost Souls’ — which was two mirrors facing each other (one mirror on the floor, and one mirror on the ceiling) in a column with a string of (Christmas) lights between them. When two mirrors face each other, they reflect back and forth, and show what seems to be an infinite hole (if one mirror is on the floor). I put an (unnecessary) protective chain in front of the floor mirror, which gave people the impression that the ‘hole’ was real. This used to freak out kids (and many adults, who thought it was a real hole), plus my dog. If you put your head above the floor mirror, you see yourself — which is a bit scary. I had a sign next to it saying: ‘Woe to those that see their souls in the well!”

Here’s a link to a video of my in-garage haunted house (10 minute video). The fake hole is about 7 minutes into the 10 minute video.

HOUSE DECOR
Here is a recent picture of my 2023 decorated house: elaborate house decorations. I combined my complex annual decorations with my minimal ’jack-o-lantern face’ decor I used during covid – when there were no trick-or-treaters. The other contributing source are the items I used in my in-garage haunted house — which I don’t do anymore. 

Lots of cool stuff — the big spider was sometimes on the roof, and sometimes in the front yard. (It was interesting/challenging to have built a large spider that can stand on its own legs.) The kids helped me choose the words on the gravestones. 

At the front door, something descends onto the heads of tricker-treaters — sometimes a spider, sometimes a bat. I attach a hard-to-see fishing line to the door, elbow it inside, and have it hold the descending item higher up. When the door opens, the fishing line advances, and the (scary) item descends. Two interesting stories: (1) our shy indoor cat Olive is fascinated by the string — so we put a chair inside near it so she can frequently check it out; (2) we recently had a young trick-or-treater (6? 7? years old) fully understand how it works — he said ‘so you have a string that connects indoors and advances to make the thing descend’. He must have an ‘engineering head’ like mine.

DINOSAUR
One crazy thing I created was a 12-foot dinosaur costume. It took me maybe a week to create it, but the result was quite cool. The head pivots, the mouth opens, and it can walk (with me inside). One interesting characteristic is — it’s a bit heavy. I built it before they started selling inflatable dinosaur costumes…

NOW
Unfortunately, I don’t do my Halloween decorations anymore. Two reasons: (1) my wife has a friend whose husband died falling off a ladder, (2) I’ve been diagnosed with ALS, which makes me significantly less capable. I plan to pass my decorations down to my kids — mostly my oldest who owns a house.

Someday soon I should do an IQ test. I might have a high IQ (I have a crazy, swirling head.) But sometimes people with low IQ’s think they are smart… 🤔

Some characteristics about me that might mean I am smart:

• Math — As a teenager, I won a state-wide math competition (best math head in the state). Another lesser thing — I’ve been recently playing a worldwide sudoku tournament on my phone (a mathy game), and the stats say that, on average, I complete a sudoku puzzle faster than 98% of the other players.
• Engineer — I have a problem-solving ‘engineer head’ which allows me to look at something, understand how it works, and fix it (if needed) or improve it. I also use my head to build interesting things — like crazy elaborate Halloween decorations.
• Music — Weird thing about me, but — I know the words to thousands and thousands of songs, even songs from my childhood, and can sing along with these songs for hours while doing other things (like writing something like this).
• ADHD — One of my children got diagnosed with ADHD, and is taking medication for it. I have many characteristics of ADHD but, when I was tested for it, they said I was too functional — so I must not have it. BUT, maybe a ‘smart person’ can sufficiently function if they have ADHD. (This also makes me wonder that, if I took ADHD meds, maybe I’d be extra capable…?)

So, my two paths forwards are:

• Get an IQ test
• Talk with my neurologist about the possibility that I have ADHD, might be too smart to have it diagnosed, but could potentially benefit from taking ADHD meds

I’ve mentioned in a previous posting that I have complex dreams. I woke up yesterday morning with something in my head that wasn’t necessarily related to a dream, but it’s interesting — and I’m going to map it out now. 

Easy Square Process
I came to the realization that it’s easy to figure out the square of a number if it’s near another number: Take the square of the nearby number, and add both that number and the adjacent number to it.

Example: 11 Squared
To determine 11 squared, you do the following:

10 squared is 100. To find out what 11 squared is, you start with 100, and add 10 to it, and then add 11 to it. You end up with 121.

11 squared isn’t that exciting, because many people may already know that it is 121. This process is more useful with larger numbers.

Example: 101 Squared
Say you wanted to know what 101 squared. This is the way to do it:

100 squared is 10,000. Add 100 and 101 to it, and you get 10,201 — which is what 101 squared is.

Example: 99 Squared
You can do it in the other direction too. If you want to know what 99 square is, start with 10,000 subtract 100 from it and then subtract 99. You end up with 9801. That is what 99 squared is.

Example: 102 Squared
If you’re looking to find a number that is farther away than just one digit, you need to do more addition or more subtraction. As an example, 102 squared is going to be 10,000 plus 100+101 plus 101+102. Which equals 10,404. Essentially you need to do the addition or the subtraction as many times as the number is different.

Proof
To validate this process, you can see it through algebra:

(X+1)² = X² + 2X + 1 — which can be organized as:

X² + X + (X+1) — which is the logic I mentioned above

Summary
It’s a little silly for me to write this down and put it on my writing site, but it is interesting to me that I woke up with this in my head. This simple way of getting the square of certain numbers is interesting, and potentially useful.

I also wake up from complex dreams — I should document these, and use them as plots for written stories.

When I was in grade school, I went to a Catholic elementary school called Saint Francis of Assisi. I lived in West Virginia, which is somewhat of a backwards state, but our school system was actually pretty solid. (Proof: A group from Japan visited our school system to gather guidance on how to improve their school system. 🤔)

SOCIALLY CONNECTED
It’s interesting because our house was close to the elementary school, and we had a pretty good connection with the school and church. Not only that, my siblings and I are pretty smart – and so the school teachers and other church/school workers would sometimes rely on us to help them out.

We had a pretty good connection with the Catholic priests at the church. Plus, some of my male siblings were altar boys — as I was. The priests would even come to our house and be social with us: pool, ping pong, etc. (Two of the priests made a little ‘too strong’ connections with some female church members, stopped being priests, and married them.)

MY ‘JOB’
I have a problem-solving / engineering head. For this reason, it was interesting to me that the school teachers would rely on me to solve problem situations. A few examples:

• Mimeograph — I’m an old guy. Back in the day, if you wanted to make paper copies of something, we didn’t have printers or copiers to accomplish this. Instead, there was something called a mimeograph machine. This was a device that gave you the ability to make copies of something — provided you properly created the initial input to do so. After creating the source ‘input paper’, you would turn a crank, and copies would spit out. One day, the mimeograph machine wasn’t working, so they asked me to take a look at it and see if I could fix it. It’s a little weird to ask an elementary school student to fix something, but they must have known that I had an engineering head, and could potentially make things work. I did fix it, and they were able to produce what they needed.
• Parrot — Another interesting situation was — there was a small parrot (maybe a parakeet?) that had gotten loose in a classroom. The classroom was empty, so it wasn’t really a major issue, other than they needed to get the parrot captured and put back in its cage. They asked me to do this — possibly because I was younger and able to stand on tables and desks and grab the parrot, but also because, again, I’m a problem solver. I did grab the parrot, and got it back in its cage. BUT, at one point, the parrot bit my hand when I grabbed it – and I still have some scars on my hand from that incident.
• Roof — They used to send me onto the roof for two different purposes: (1) to flip the church bell which could get flipped over and stuck if the rope to make it ring was pulled too hard, and (2) to recover kickballs that someone kicked onto the roof. The roof was two stories high (pretty tall), but was flat — so it wasn’t that dangerous to be on – as long as I didn’t get too near the edge.

AGGRESSIVE NUNS
Back in the day, Catholic nuns were allowed to manage the students using aggressive techniques. I was a generally well-behaved student, but I was smacked multiple times (sometimes with a wooden paddle) when I did something the nuns didn’t like. I remember during a fire drill, covering my ears with my hands as I was walking past the wall-mounted alarm device. A nun smacked me in the head with her hand because of this.

DANGEROUS PLAYGROUND
Decades ago, those building a school playground didn’t think about how safe it was. The playground at my elementary school had tall metal climbing structures — some with parts 10 feet off the paved ground. I played frequently on these structures and never got hurt, but I’m sure some kids did. Playgrounds today are more sensibly built.

SOCIAL WITH STUDENTS
I was connected with kids in my class who weren’t white skinned — partly because my parents didn’t teach me to think non-white people weren’t as good as white people (nice). I remember frequently hanging on the playground with a Chinese girl and a black boy. (I actually really liked the Chinese girl, but was too young to have a girlfriend.)

WHO IS THE BUTTHEAD?
I remember tripping a guy who was running laps around the playground. Why did I do this? I’d like to think that it was because he had previously done something bad to someone else. Strange.

SUMMARY
My elementary school experience was pretty unique and crazy. A lot happened (both good and bad) — but it definitely was a significant part of my childhood, and I strongly remember my time there more than at later schools.

HEAD

Math
As a teenager, I won a statewide mathematics contest. It was a multi-level progression — best in my school, best in my county, best in a group of counties, best in the state. I ended up in the newspaper, and on the TV news. Pretty cool.

Engineering / Creativity
I have a problem-solving ‘engineer’ head. I can look at something, understand it, and know how to fix/improve it. This ability has allowed me to enhance the houses that I have lived in, plus create crazy/interesting decorations for Halloween.

Over-Thinker / Pragmatic
I have a very busy head — which allows me to think through things before I do them. This talent actually helps me get past my dorkiness, and act more normal — which has helped my tech career.

My over-thinking head also allows me to be extra pragmatic about situations, and not be emotional about something I can’t change.

Songs
I remember thousands of songs — both new and old — and can sing along (for hours) with music being played. It’s a bit crazy to know so many songs, know all the words, and be able to sing along with them.

Double Attention
My busy brain allows me to pay attention to two different things at the same time. For example, I can watch TV and dork around on my phone at the same time — and fully follow both. Or I can listen to and sing along with songs, and also do something else — like work on my computer. When my wife talks to me, I sometimes look away (thinking about something else) — and though I’m still paying attention to her, she thinks I am not.

Complex Dreams
Pretty much every morning, I wake up from a crazy, complex dream. The dreams are like a whole different life/experience — often magical and science fictional, plus (sort of) work related. I’m often running/managing a group of people doing crazy, magical things. I should start verbally recording my dreams when I wake up, and possibly use them as the plot for written stories.

BODY

Running / Athletic
Maybe anyone can do this — but in college, I used to run 10 miles every other day. I ran with two of my roommates. It took me a few weeks to be able to run that far, but it was a lot of running overall. I also broke a leg toward the end of college (climbing a building), but I recovered, and still ran later in life.

I was also able to try various sports — soccer, golf, ping-pong, tennis, etc — and be successful at them. I captained a tennis team at my health club, and practiced ping-pong in college against the school ping-pong champion.

Also, my feet are very capable. I can do some things with my feet that I do with my hands — open drawers, pick things up, etc.

Eyes
My eyes are independent, and they used to not be pointing in the same way — but I had one eye surgically adjusted when young (pop it out, adjust the direction, pop it back in).

My vision is (barely) OK. I have one eye that sees near things pretty well, and another that sees far things pretty well. What’s interesting is that my vision isn’t improvable with lenses, but fortunately it’s good enough — I can read and drive.

Teeth
Minor thing, but — my teeth are very healthy and white. Every dentist visit, they ask me: do I drink coffee? (Assuming I don’t, but I do.) And they tell me that my teeth look better than most of their patients.

I wrote this about a year and a half go — but forgot to publish it.

It’s interesting how my career has evolved – specifically, the role I do for the tech companies for which I work.

Everybody is good at some things, and bad at other things. Everyone has a unique personality – which is a product of their genetics and their experience. And that personality, plus the natural talents that one has, usually determines one’s career path and how good they are at that path.

I am a ‘natural engineer’. What is that? It means that I am a problem solver. If I see something that needs adjustment/improvement, I can visualize multiple ways to make it happen, weigh these solutions against each other, and pursue the best path.

If I were sensible, I probably should have followed an ‘engineering’ career path – become a fancy technical architect, or maybe pursued engineering management. My challenge was – the first time I was a manager for engineering teams, I was in a difficult situation:

1. I worked for a purchased startup, where the company that bought us only wanted the technology and worldwide offices, and not the local (Silicon Valley) people.
2. I became the manager of a group where the previous manager had given most people bad reviews, and the company policy was: you needed good reviews for two years to get a promotion. One of my engineers was solid, but I couldn’t promote her because she had a previous bad review – she didn’t like that.

I kept a whiteboard tally in my work office of people who had left the company – and the tally grew to 100+, which is a lot for a small startup. I eventually left the company, but had such an unhappy experience managing teams (I managed a second team at the same time), that it made me not want to manage teams anymore.

My other two ‘dork’ factors are:

• I am not naturally social. I’m generally an awkward, unsocial person – who isn’t the most desirable person for people to want to hang with.
• I am ‘secretly smart’ (I use this term a lot). I grew up in a modest state, but once won a statewide math contest (not bad) – so my brain (over)thinks things well, which allows me to evaluate situations and decide the best/sensible path. I actually use my overthinking brain to decide the best way to compensate for (hide) my dorkiness.

At the end of the day, I come across as being smart/sensible (but slightly dorky), and companies like me.

So…

I have followed the path, in the tech companies I have worked for, of being a project/program manager. It’s sort of like being a people manager, but you don’t have people reporting to you.

Without getting too deep, I’ve had a good career. Two regrets:

• College Choice – I grew up in a family that didn’t focus on college. My parents didn’t go to college. Some of my older siblings went to college (some didn’t graduate). My next older sibling got a bachelors and masters degree – which steered me toward college – BUT no one really gave much guidance/weight to which college I should go to. I paid for my own college, but (wrongly) thought that the only important result was: the degree, and not whether it was a ‘fancy’ college. My grades (and intelligence) were likely good enough to get me into Stanford? MIT? I likely would have been regarded/hired better had I done so, but I went to University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign – not a bad tech school, but not a super fancy/well-regarded one.
• Working vs Launching – The other thing that didn’t occur to me was – starting my own company. There are people who start multiple companies, one company actually works well, and they make good money – I could have done that. Especially since I was ‘early’ in the tech timeline, and could have started some basic tech companies like: devices (Apple), internet (Google), etc. I’ve worked in tech for decades, and am approaching retirement – but I still have (modern/current) ideas that I could pass down to my kids – so they could do what I didn’t (start companies). (Maybe I could be the CTO for those companies…)

In summary, I am awkward socially, but ‘secretly smart’ – and use my overthinking brain to fix/hide my awkwardness. It has worked for me. My career has been good, but it likely could have been better had I been aware of other paths that could have landed me in a better place.

Oh well, you can’t fix the past…

My kids are all smart. I used to think that they inherited that smartness from me – but I’ve come to realize that my wife is smart, in a broader way than me. (Maybe I’m not as smart as I think I am…?)

The way I view things now, is that: — I’m smart in some directions very narrowly, and my wife is more broadly smart than me.

Some examples (me);

• I once won first place in a statewide math contest
• I have a ’problem solving / engineer’ head — and can view something, understand it, and determine the best path to fix or improve it (if needed)
• I took way too many classes in college, but still ended up with an OK GPA
• I worked in the tech industry for decades, was successful, but was a bit of a dork – so I never really bumped up the management ladder at any company

My wife:

• Is more generally sensible
• She might not be able to ‘out math’ me, but she has a broader perspective – and generally knows the best path forward

I’d like to think that our children got a combination of our capabilities. Maybe they have a ‘math capable / engineering’ head like me, but also have more common sense than me — and can have a more-successful career than I had.

We’ll see how this all turns out.