Why are we building one of these things? It’s simple really. First there’s expense. A Forgeworld Thunderhawk cost around $600. That’s not including paints, tools, and extra bits. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have $600 lying around that I can spend on what amounts to a toy. Another reason we’ve decided to go the DIY route is labor. You may think that building your own model is more labor intensive that simply buying one and putting it together. Again, it comes back to Forgeworld not being the optimal choice. For those who are not familiar with Forgeworld’s merchandise, their products are made from resign which has some very bad drawbacks: it weighs a lot, it’s prone to warping, it’s prone to breaking, and it’s a pain to clean. Combine all those shortcomings into a model that is two feet long, and you’ve got a major headache.

With a quick Google search we were able to find some templates to begin our project, and this is what we were able to construct.

We think it’s a great prototype, but clearly it’s nothing like what you can get from the merchant. The overall shape was just too boxy with an extremely wide fuselage. The canards and folding wings were way to big, and the tail fins were all wrong (the reason for their absence in the picture). The lines that we’ve drawn on the model are to give an idea the direction we’re going to take this. My brother has the 3-D model of the next version almost done. Once that’s complete we’ll have a new set of templates to work from and build another test model, which I will post.

Why am I sad you might ask?

As a kid growing up in central Florida in the 80′s, the Space Shuttle was the pinnicle of all things that had a pair of wings and could fly to a kid that loved anything that flew. I remember seeing a many smoke trails as it lifted off from the backyard. I also remember seeing the Challenger explode from my hospital room. I remember silently crying a Saturday morning in high school as I watched Columbia burn up and break apart.

Even with the danger and the disasters,I have always had a dream of one day flying in it. Never really figured out how I would get there, but those were minor details. Even when reality hit that my chances of leaving this Earth because of my health was limited to taking an airliner finally hit me, I still held on that if I could get on the shuttle I would. To feel the thrust of take off, true weightless, and to look out and see the planet would fulfill my life forever.

Now those days are slipping by. The very last shuttle launch is schedule for sometime in June. I’ve never even had the chance to see the shuttle lift off from the launch pad. As I said, I’ve grown up with the shuttle, and as its career is coming to a close I can’t help but feel a bit sad, a bit lost, and a bit disappointed.

Seeing as yesterday was Mother’s Day, a day where everyone shows their appreciation for all the mothers in their lives, I got to thinking. As dialysis patients, who do you appreciate? Who are the unsung heroes that take care of us, support us, or just generally be there for us?

It goes without saying who I appreciate. I just pasted a big picture of her leading my article. A picture I’ll probably get smacked for. That’s my wife, Laura, and without her I probably wouldn’t be in as good of a condition as I am. She takes care of me, makes sure that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, and most importantly she’s my patient advocate when I need one. She does my site cleaning and gives my Epogen injections. She carries me when I’m too weak to walk, and she makes some mean pork chops. Now, I’m not discounting my family. They have supported us when we needed it, but Laura is doing it everyday. Don’t think she coddles me all the time. No, she kicks me in the butt most of the time.

The thing that strikes me most is that she volunteered for this position. She is not blood related (that would be illegal). She didn’t grow up with my condition or dealing with my condition. She came into it with only a vague notion of what could happen.  I know what you’re thinking. I can hear it over the Internet. You’re saying, “But, Barry, she’s your wife. She kind of has to take care of you.”  True, but my dialysis nurse has told us of marriages that didn’t survive dialysis. Plus, she could easily say do everything myself, and carry on with her normal life and leave me to deal with the messy details of dialysis care. Yet she doesn’t. I know I probably don’t say it enough, but I do truly thank her for what she does.

Now that I’ve shared my embarrassing emotions, what’s your story? If you really think about it, rarely are we doing this alone. Let them know you’re thankful for what they do, and tell us about it.

It’s been forever since I’ve done anything with my blog, writing, or reading for the matter. I haven’t had any horrible medical problems, just laziness. Even now I can’t think of what has kept me away from everything. I only recently started back to school. I have been working on my models a lot more.

Really has just been the problem of everyday life that we all deal with that has kept me away. Laundry, grocery shopping, and other random errands clutter up the day until all I want to do is numb my brain with senseless video games.

There’s been the never ending quest of trying to find a job, but in this day and time, I’m not the only one looking. Like I’ve said, I’ve started back to school in order to try and help me get a job. They’ve always said computers is where everything’s at, so I’m learning to work with computers and set up networks.

Of course the biggest thing in my life is dialysis and trying to get a kidney transplant. Trying isn’t a good word. There’s noting I can actually do except wait. I guess I could try the Facebook and blog approach that people have done with some success, but as you probably already know I’ve been doing that. However, I don’t pursue it probably as hard as I could. The one time I did; it felt like it was becoming a full time job creating, researching, and producing things for my blog and Youtube channel. I took a break. A break that’s going on two years now. I make no promises that I’ll go as crazy as I did, but I should do something.

I really don’t know what to make of this book. I think a lot of reviewers did a better job at reviewing this book than I can.
To begin with, this book was a mixed bag. For I while, I would be angry with the book; however, doing a bit of research calmed my temper so I could attempt to understand what’s going on. I understand now why this is a classic. While I was reading it, I felt I was reading something important, or at least deluding myself that I was. However, I can’t put a finger on what the significance of this book is. To keep things short I’ll bullet the problems with the book.

*Nondescript and strange future. The story is set in a future I can’t figure out. It’s far enough into the future for there to be flying cars, deep space travel, and other technology that I can really figure out. However, apparently basic civil rights has developed, women are still mainly consigned to birthing babies, being secretaries, and cooking. The problem I have with this is that the story is about the Man from Mars’ reaction to human culture. If the setting is bizarre and strange for the reader, and the author throws on top of that the Man from Mars’ confused and strange reaction, it just leaves everybody scratching their heads.

*Convoluted structure. This stretches from dialogue structure to the flow of the story. Heinlein seemed to forget the importance of signifying who’s talking. I found myself reading section of conversation between a group of characters trying to figure out who’s talking because that author would go for a page or more and have used the word “said” once. One particular flaw that I noticed was the ability of many of the characters to forget things, like Earth changing things. Example, Mike, the Man from Mars, demonstrates that he has the power to make objects and people vanish from existence and levitation. He shows this numiouers times and in front of some of the other main characters. However, later in the book when Mike demonstrates his powers again, the characters can’t believe and believe it’s a trick of some kind. Finally, the book itself is little more than a convoluted philosophical diatribe on various culture concepts such as money, possession, sex, and religion with a thin story wrapped around it.

One review said it best. This book reveals more about the time it was written than about the subject it’s written about. It’s an okay read, and will cause you to think, momentarily, about what makes us human and what builds and controls our civilization.

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The first event that happened that spurred me into doing this post was that Laura and I, having nothing much to do over the weekend, decided we would watch it again on DVD. Just like the first time, I could only make it about half way before I couldn’t stand it anymore. Apparently, I’m the only person on the internet that hates this movie.

Why do I loath this movie so much? That is a great question. You see, it all started months before the movie was released, and in my wandering on the internet I would read here and there about this really cool movie being directed by James Cameron called  Avatar. Side note: my original thought was that this was the live action version of the Nickelodeon cartoon. Cameron played his cards close to chest on this never releasing more than a few pictures and short blurbs. When the trailers finally started appearing, my interests was increased even more. Then came the day I read an article on Syfy Wire that basically said that Avatar would change things like Star Wars. With this and the other hundreds of articles the site was posting about the movie, I thought, “My god. This movie will be absolutely amazing!” I waited for opening day. Sprung for the 3-D version, and prepared to be blown away. An hour later, I said, “Done.”

So what is so bad about this movie? Since I’m sure just about everyone on the planet has seen this movie, I’ll only point out a few of the flaws. I’m sure you can generate plenty of examples to go along with my list.

• Horribly cliche story that makes no attempts to be original.
• Hackney writing. I could make another bullet list of some of the horrible lines that were uttered during this film, but I’ll spare us all that pain.
• Visual effects that we have seen in countless other Sci-fi  movies. There I said. I’ll probably catch flack for it, but go back and pick out any Sci-fi movie or major block buster made in the last, we’ll say, 5 years, and I’ll show you CGI.
• Stilted acting that made me feel I was watching a puppet show.

Now to get a little bit more picky.

• The main character, Jake Sully, is a disabled vet that just so happens to have an identical twin that is apart of this Avatar program. The higher ups decided to use Jake since his brother was killed.

Right there James Cameron, because apparently he is the one that wrote this, couldn’t come up with some way of getting his main character into the story on his own, so he comes up with the throw away tool of a twin brother. We never hear of the brother again. Jake shows no real emotion one way or another about it. He’s there, and once he gives a reason for Jake to fly across space he’s gone.

• The whole reason for humans going to this distant planet, Pandora, is to mine Unobtainium.

Really? This sounds like some spur of the moment idea jotted down on a napkin. Okay, ridicules name aside, I can go with humans going to a distant world to mine. However, we are given no reason why this ore is so great and wonderful. At least some reason it’s named Unobtainium. Otherwise, why the hell are humans there?

• The sex scene between Jake and his alien love interest Neytiri.

I know we all know the scene I’m talking about. That is the point I lost it. After I laughed out loud in the theater, I promptly gave up my suspension of disbelief. Not that human/alien love making is a forgein concept in Sci-fi. I just have to mention Captain Kirk, but this just seemed over the top and pointless. Maybe it was the childish dialogue building up to it? Maybe it was the fact that neither of the characters seemed fleshed out, so it didn’t come off as two characters deeply in love consumating the relationship. Instead it came off as, “Let’s put a sex scene in. That’ll bring in the money.”

Which brings me to the question I posed at the very beginning. Is this James Cameron’s masterwork of film or James Cameron’s masterwork of marketing? Well, you should have your answer  tomorrow when Avatar: Special Edition will be hitting theaters. The man is not even pulling a George Lucas and waiting years to re-release his film with scenes never before seen, and then releasing them again with even more deleted scenes.  I just wonder will they have fixed the problems the original had of story, character, and dialogue, or will they just be giving the public more pretty pictures. The funny thing is that there are even rumors of two more of these movies. That will be money I’m keeping in my pocket.

There you go internet. James Cameron is playing us for chumps, and apparently a lot of people are falling for it. What I can’t understand is how a movie like Avatar which void of any originality or creativity can held up on a pedestal, but movies like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World which are genuinely  creative and unique are considered a disaster.  I can almost hear the comments now, but I’ll still ask you what you think because I’m just like that.

A good read with the high lights of a good mystery story. The only short fallings with this book are that the characters are a bit stiff, but that’s to be expected with the time period it’s set in and location. The thing that did surprise me was that Miss Marple, the detective that all these books are built around, is not the main character.

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I picked this book up as a reference source for my writing. I have a horrible time coming up with plot, so I figured this would help. That part is bordering on success. It’s a good general tool, and the author reminds the reader several times that there is no true way to writing plot. However, there are still some major weaknesses with the book. This is a general overview of 20 master plots, and when I say general I mean some parts are so diluted and water down they make no sense. The further I went in the book became more vague making it seem that the author spent all of his energy in the first half of the book and just slapped on the second half. If you read this book just double check yourself or spark and idea, I would count it as a success, but if you’re going to read this book as a major text book to teach you plot, then I would say move on.

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Let me back up and share the story that brought me to writing this post. Today, I spent my morning chasing down information on fundraising. The insurance that I’m on completely covers organ transplant, so I don’t have any financial worries dealing with medical expenses. There are, however, going to be a lot of expenses besides medical that I’ll have to take care of once I get transplanted. To help with those, Laura and I have decided to begin fundraising.  As I began to poke around for information, I realize that fundraising for an individual is kind of over looked. Basically, our options are to take the money we raise and stuff it in the mattress.

Making sure that bills are being paid can help alleviate a lot of the stress associated with dialysis. However, to achieve that you have to live your life by a few principles.

1. Means vs Expences

I think any talk about finances should start with the number one axiom: Don’t live outside of your means. I think most of the country is learning that lesson right now, but mastering this concept will make everything else a lot easier.  Look at your current income compared to your current expenses?  Does your input exceed your output?  If the margin is closer than you’d like, take a look at what you’re spending your money on.  One of the easiest things to do to save money is eat out less.  That’s actually a win-win situation since most restaurant food is loaded with sodium and phosphorus, things dialysis patients definitely don’t need.  If you limit your eating out to once or twice a week (including fast food lunches!!) that will save a surprising and ridiculous amount of money.  Other things you can do is see what utilities and household items you can cut back on.  For example, we bundle our phone, Internet, and cable, but since we rarely watch TV anymore (except reruns), we decided to save by cutting off the cable for awhile.  The cool thing was, when we called Cox Communications to cut it off temporarily, they cut our bill in half for 6 months and left the cable on since we had been such long-time customers.  It never hurts to ask credit card companies for a temporary rate decrease or cell phone companies for a temporary monthly payment decrease or rework the contract.  Most companies nowadays are willing to work a little to keep your business and still get payments.  It never hurts to ask!!!

2. Account Management

This is a concept that I think everybody should figure out, especially people with chronic medical conditions. Now I’m not talking about balancing your checkbook and keeping receipts. Although those are two practices you are doing right. What I’m talking about is organizing and giving accounts specific jobs. For example, Laura and I have a variety of savings accounts. One is designated for house hold purposes and we have two separate savings accounts designated strictly for medical expenses. Unfortunately, after two years, those are tapped out!  See what your bank offers. Generally, I try to get a high dividend account for my major medical savings account.  Since medical emergencies are generally spaced out this allows the account to work for you and generate a nice little chunk of change. Of course this really only works when you’ve followed rule number one and have money to save!  If we ever finally open a fundraising account, we will follow this principle with that one as well.  We will deposit all money donated for the purpose of medical expenses, and it will only be used for medical expenses and trips.  So, after transplant, it will be used to pay for the hotel, rental car, food and expenses incurred during our stay near the hospital.  It will also pay for the trips back and forth to the transplant center once they let us go home.

3. Budgeting

There, I said it.  I said the “B” word.  A budget does not mean you no longer have spontaneity in your spending habits.  It just means you have an idea ahead of time what wiggle room you have when you’re treating yourself.  In an ideal world, our budget would have 10% (gross) tithe, 10% (net) savings, and everything else is for expenses.  Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world.  Poop.  So, we start with our mortgage and work our way down from there. We are firm believers, and have remained practicers, of paying more than the minimum payment due on all loans (down to the truck loan only!!) and credit cards (finally made it down to one card!!).  It saves oodles on interest over time, and it keeps wiggle room if you ABSOLUTELY have to fall back on the cards.  Which I do not recommend unless there is no other choice.  We don’t have an official, set in stone, budget.   But we do know how much it takes to cover the bills, and those are taken care of.  Whatever is left over (and most months that’s not much) we have to take care of things that have come up that need to be taken care of.  Like a new air conditioner.  Again, poop.  Budgets can be as strict or as lenient as you want them to be.  Just prioritize.  Make sure bills are covered first.  Put a little extra on the ones you can.  Practice the snowball approach.  Take your smallest bill, and put extra on that one until it’s gone.  Then take the payment you had budgeted for that account and add it the the payment for the next smallest account.  Eventually (and yes, this will take time, impatient people) you will be making a large payment on your largest accounts, getting rid of them quicker and saving on interest.  Totally worth it.  Budgets can make it happen.  Just don’t forget to budget for extracurricular time.  That’s important too, even if it’s just $10 a month and saving for several months for a big day out.  You need to take that time for yourself sometimes.

These may seem very basic and common sense principles, and they are.  But they can be hard to follow through on.  I’m not saying this road is easy.  But it’s necessary.  And it will relieve a lot of stress as you see the balances slowly disappear.  Trust me.  We threw a party when we finally paid off our consolidation loan!  And remember:  pennies make dollars.  Keep a jar for change, and every once in a while deposit it in the bank and make a payment on something!