The SoapBoxers

Troy Peterson secured the two gas cans into the trunk of the car and slammed the trunk lid.  A few minutes later, he was on the road.  The hunt had commenced.

Troy pointed his Impala in the direction of – well, of nowhere in particular, actually.  He just drove.  Mile after mile of interstate zoomed by.  Troy locked the cruise control in at 65 miles per hour and listened to the radio as faster cars zoomed by him in the left hand lane.  On this day, Troy could not risk a speeding ticket.

A bit after dusk, Troy pulled off the interstate and quickly found himself on a deserted road.  He refueled the gas tank with one of the cans, urinated in the ditch, and then jumped back in the car to continue his journey.  As he drove, he grabbed one of the ham sandwiches he had packaged for the trip.  He wolfed down the sandwich and chased it down with a can of Pepsi.

At 10 PM, Troy parked his car outside a large grocery store.  He grabbed his Cubs hat and pulled it down over his face.  He also grabbed another very important item from the car.

Troy began to walk away from the grocery store, deeper into the heart of the neighborhood.  At this time of night, there was very little activity.

After twenty minutes of walking the streets, he saw a light come on.  A door opened, and a young woman stepped out of her house.  She turned onto the sidewalk and began to walk directly toward Troy.  It appeared that she, too, was out for a walk on this peaceful evening.

As the woman approached Troy, she gave him a friendly smile.  Troy responded by pulling his gun and firing two shots into her head.  The woman was dead before she hit the ground.

Troy immediately began to run.  Soon, he was several blocks away from the crime scene and slowed his pace to a walk.  He returned to the parking lot, got back into the car, and pointed the Impala toward home.  He made another pit stop on the way home, once again filling the tank an emptying his bladder.

Troy returned home just in time to stop by Denny’s for breakfast.  He visited the bathroom first, scrubbing off the residue of any gasoline smell that remained.  His hands now smelled of soap.  Troy exited the bathroom and took his seat at a table nearly the window.  As he waited for the waitress to bring his grand slam, Troy greeted several friends, firmly establishing his whereabouts early that morning.

Hundreds of miles away, a woman lie in the morgue.  The police could find no obvious motive for her murder.  Nor would they ever find one.  She had been cut down in the prime on her life by a stranger looking for a cheap thrill.  The randomness of the attack and her killer’s effort to avoid a paper trail would make it virtually impossible to solve the crime.

Back at the Denny’s, Troy Peterson smiled to himself as he sipped his orange juice.  He loved his monthly field trips.

This is the story of the little audio book that could – struggling through adversity to final lay down 4 tracks for consumption by the public.  Not just any audio book, but the audio book of The Cell Window.

Writing

Let’s start at the beginning.  This audio book, like all audio books, began its life as a written story.  When I released The Fiction of Kosmo, Volume 1, I included the 10,000 word story Key Relationships.  Key Relationships basically poured out of my brain and onto the keyboard thousands of words at a time.  Even with many competing priorities, I was able to finish the story in ten days.

The Cell Window was a completely different beast.  I struggled to gain traction with story.  Despite the fact that it is nearly identical in length to Key Relationships, it took six weeks to complete!  In the process, it delayed the release of The Fiction of Kosmo, Volume 2.

That’s not to say that the process of writing the story was entirely negative.  When I was finished, I was very pleased with the story.  The mature tone of the story caused me to lose one loyal readers, but it got very positive reviews from many others.

The store

At some point along the way, I decided that I wanted to sell some of my content online in an effort to break even on my blogging.  I wanted to avoid sites that would charge me fees, in order to keep costs low, allowing me to keep prices low.  I ended up going with Zen Cart (see review here), a product that installed on my web server.

While Zen Cart has the benefit of being free, it has the drawback of having a much steeper learning curve than a site where you simply drop your files, set a price, and wait for the cash to roll in.  I’ve tinkered quite a bit with it, taking time away from my writing.  At this point, the Hyrax Publications store is probably in a fairly stable form.  Other than adding new content, I don’t foresee any major changes.

Headset woes

What would an audio book be without the audio?

When it came time to record, I went in search of the headset microphone I had used with my old copy of Via Voice speech recognition software.  It wasn’t in my drawer of computer stuff.  I pulled out the large tote from the closet – it wasn’t in there, either.

Oops.  It seems that I had bundled Via Voice – and the accompanying headset microphone – with an old computer when I sold it.  I’m guessing that this is because Via Voice was for OS9 and I had replaced that computer with an OS X machine.  In any case, no headset microphone.

OK, so I went out and bought a headset microphone.  No problem.

Well, actually, problem.  When I went to use Audacity to record the audio, it didn’t pick up any sound at all.  What was going on?  I’m not an expert on recording audio, so I searched Google in hopes of finding out what was at the heart of the problem.

It seems that Macs require actually “line level” audio input, whereas PCs do not, because of some additional component on the motherboard of PCs.  Thus, the headset intended for a PC was not going to work.  Curses.  I abandoned the headset microphone.  As a last ditch effort, I recorded audio to my microcassette recorder and tried to feed that in.  The computer DID recognize the input – but the sound quality was pretty crappy.

I went back to eBay and ordered a USB headset that should work with my Mac.  A few days later, the headset arrived in the mail.  I was ready to roll – I wanted to start recording immediately.

There was only one problem – there was no USB adapter.  I took a careful look inside the case and couldn’t find anything.  I carefully re-read the eBay description.  Yep, it was supposed to have a USB adapter.  I looked at the image in the auction – it clearly showed the USB adapter.  It was quite obvious that the adapter had been left out of my package.

I communicated the problem to the company, and they quickly shipped out the adapter.  I made a few quick test recordings, and I was ready to roll.

Recorded

The first thing I recorded was The Tale of the Wolf.  Honestly, I was a bit underwhelmed by the audio version.  In particular, I notice some idiosyncrasies that I didn’t like.  (No, I’m not going to point them out.  If I did, they would jump front and center for you. )

Tale of the Wolf was a mere 2 minutes in length.  The Cell Window was clearly going to be much longer.  Since the story contains about 20 times as many words as Tale of the Wolf, I estimated that it would be 40+ minutes long.

Clearly, a 40 minute audio book should be broken into some tracks.  I had a few things to consider.  I could choose to zip up all the MP3s into a compressed file and have the customer download just one file.  Alternately, I could have the customers download each file separately, as MPs.  I decided to go the route of the multiple downloads because I didn’t like the extra step of extracting the MP3s from the compressed file after download.  This seems like a minor issue to a lot of people – but one of my computers does not have any native tool to expand a ZIP file, and it took some time to find the proper tool.  It wasn’t a big deal for me, but I felt it might be problematic for some customers.  Better to leave the files as MP3.

How many tracks?  I founded that breaking the story into chunks of about 2500 words would allow me to end each track at the end of a story section.  The audio book would have 4 tracks (for a total length of about 48 minutes).

I was very self-conscious during the recording.  I’m not a professional reader, and knew that the audio book was not going to have the slickness of something by an audio master such as Scott Brick.  The goal was for the audio performance to be neutral – not adding significantly to the value of the original story, but also not detracting from the value.

When I was finished, I popped the files into iTunes and gave them a listen.  Surprisingly, I thought the MP3s came out sounding OK – better than they had sounded to me when I was recording.  Certainly, there are a few awkward spots where I momentarily lose my place when reading.  Overall, though, my biased opinion was that I had done a somewhat competent job, considering my amateur status.

I burned the files to CD and listened one more time the next morning.  After listening a second time, I was still happy with the performance, and deemed it ready for the store.

You can download the audio version of The Cell Window at the Hyrax Publications store.  You can purchase it separately for $3.99.  It is also included in the Annual Kosmo Pass (regular price $18, currently on sale for $9), along with all of Kosmo’s eBooks and audio book, including those scheduled for release in the future.  We expect to add a few eBooks each year, and plan to record nearly all of the 50 existing fiction stories to audio in the next few months.  The annual pass is currently good for 14 months, rather than 12.

As a special bonus, the first person to buy a copy of the audio version of The Cell Window today, will get it for FREE – and I’ll upgrade you to the Annual Kosmo Pass!  What’s the catch?  Well, you won’t know if you’re the first person until later (the charge will be processed, then I will refund the money later in the day).

If I had a million dollars, I’d be rich.

Well, that’s what Barenaked Ladies would have you believe. In actuality, a million bucks doesn’t stretch as far as it once did.

If you were indeed rich, how would you spend the money?

First, I’ll set down a few rules.

First, let’s assume that you have already donated a sizeable chunk to charities and taken care of your family.

Second, let’s make these without any thought as to what your spouse or kids would think of the decision.

Yes, this is a nice, breezy little “we can always dream” article.

Where to Live

I’d definitely want two homes. I’d want a summer home in the Florida Keys. I like the laid back atmosphere in the Keys, love being surrounded by water (which is odd, considering that I can’t swim), and most importantly, I intensely dislike cold weather. Lay under a palm tree reading a book and listening to Jimmy Buffett. Yeah, that’s the life.

Summers would be spent in the mountains of Colorado. Sadly, I’ve only been to the mountains once, but I absolutely love them. I’d spend lots of time hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park and shooting the wildlife and scenery with my digital camera.

Oh, and Colorado has one distinct advantage over other locations – it also happens to be the home of my favorite baseball team. I’d plunk down the cash for season tickets right behind home plate. None of those fancy skyboxes for me – I want to be able to hear that batter arguing with the umpire.

The House

There is one aspect to my dream home that has never wavered over the years – the presence of a large library. When I say large, I mean something that would rival the libraries in some small towns. Not only do I love to read, but I’d happily lend tomes to visitors. The library would have a media center with a couple of high end Power Macs.

I’d definitely want to grounds to be landscaped with synthetic turf in order to minimize the maintenance. They make some very realistic synthetic turfs these days. Grass is overrated.

The rest of the details are relatively unimportant.

The Cars

Lamborgini? Porsche? Mercedes Benz? Nah, just keep a Ford Taurus in the garage and I’ll be happy. My first car was a Taurus (had 96,000 miles when I bought it), as is every car I have bought since.

Could I spend lots more on a fancier car? Sure. But I see a car as a way to get from point A to point B. If I’m going to waste a lot of money, it’s certain not going to be on a luxury car.

Hobbies

What would I do with my spare time? Well, as mentioned above, I would read, hike, watch baseball, and listen to Jimmy Buffett. But I’d do other things, too, right?

I’d definitely try to make the cut for Jeopardy. I don’t watch a lot of TV – and even fewer game shows – but Jeopardy has been a longtime favorite of mine. I wouldn’t necessarily have to win – competing would be enough fun.

On there is one other thing. I want to go into space. Not just as a tourist, mind you. I want to take a space walk – tethered to civilization by just a thing line. I can only imagine the thrill this must give astronauts. The only downside is that I’m not much of a handyman, and most spacewalks involve fixing some sort of equipment.

Maybe I could hold the ladder for the other guy.

What would you do if YOU were suddenly rich?

You might have missed the news with the hoopla of the NCAA tournament over the weekend, but the Minnesota Twins signed All Star catcher Joe Mauer to an 8 year, $184 million deal.  Obviously, $23 million per year is a lot of money for any player, but I think this deal makes a lot of sense for the Twins.  I’ll tell you why.

It prevents fan defection

The Twins have, historically, been a bit, er, frugal.  This in spite of the fact that former owner Carl Pohlad actually had more money than Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.  Steinbrenner ran the Yankees as a hobby and desired to have World Series championships.  Pohlad ran the Twins more like a business, actually paying attention to the bottom line.  In a smaller media market such as Minneapolis, this often meant having players like Johan Santana and Torii Hunter leave to pursue more money elsewhere.

Mauer has always been a special fan favorite for the Twins.  Mauer played his high school ball at Cretin-Durham Hall, right in the Twins cities.  In 2001, the Twins made him the first overall pick in the draft.  This wasn’t a slam dunk decision.  Many observers felt that USC pitcher Mark Prior was a much better gamble than a high school catcher, regardless of the numbers he put up in high school.  Looking back nine years later, the decision to pick Mauer was clearly the correct decision.

Mauer sets a good example on and off the field.  I am unaware of him ever being in any trouble off the field.  On the field, in his first 5 full seasons, he has won three batting titles, three gold gloves, and an MVP award – and has finished in the top 6 in the MVP voting on two other occasions.

In short, Mauer is bigger than hockey in Minnesota.  Well, maybe not.  Probably bigger than curling, though.  Losing Mauer would have been catastrophic for Twins fans, and they would have stayed away from games in droves.   This is a franchise that was once on the chopping block to be removed from baseball as part of contraction (the Expos-now-Nationals were the other team).

Keeps him away from the Yankees

The big fear, of course, was that the Yankees were going to come in and grab Mauer as a free agent.  This makes a lot of sense, with Yankee catcher Jorge Posada in the twilight of his career.  Brian Cashman would have loved the opportunity to add Mauer’s bat to the lineup.

This would have been a double whammy for the Twins.  Not only would it have been more difficult for the Twins to reach the post-season without Mauer, they’d be forced to play a Mauer-led Yankees team if they made it into the playoffs.

It’s actually not a bad deal, financially

You may look at Mauer’s numbers and say “meh, they’re pretty strong numbers, but he’s not exactly Albert Pujols.”

That’s quite true, but you need to look at the context of the numbers.  Mauer is a catcher – the most difficult position on the field.  It’s very rare to get elite offensive production out of a catcher.  Mauer is a best offensive catcher since Mike Piazza.  I hesitate to even make this comparison – not because of any shortcomings of Mauer, but shortcomings of Piazza.  Piazza was a very good hitter, but it’s very generous to refer to him as a catcher.  It’s an exaggeration to say that I’m a better defensive catcher than Piazza – but not by much.

Mauer is not a catcher in the mold of Piazza, though.  He is actually a good defensive catcher.  Finding a catcher who can combine good offensive and defensive skills is almost impossible –and you need to pay for it.  The drop-off between Mauer and the average MLB catcher is enormous.

Finally, the Twins are paying for some of Mauer’s peak years.  Players typically begin their prime years around age 27 and start to fade in their late 30s.  Mauer will be 28 next year when the contract starts in 2011 and 35 when the contract ends after the 2018 season.  Those are good years to pay for, although it wouldn’t be surprising to see Mauer enter a bit of a decline toward the end of the deal.  An 8 year contract that starts at age 28 is much better than an 8 year deal that starts at age 32.

What are your thoughts on the Mauer deal?  (Let’s try not to go down the “athletes are overpaid” route too much.  Elite performers in many fields are paid insane amounts of money.)

Store Update: We’ve been busy stocking the shelves at the Hyrax Publications store recently.  Last week was the release of Sell Yourself Short: A Guide to Short Story Writing (currently on sale for 99 cents!).  Today, we’re happy to announce the release of the audio version of The Cell Window.  The Cell Window is the tale of a professional voyeur.  The audio version is 48 minutes long and features the voice of Kosmo.  Note: Kosmo is not a professional audio book reader, so keep this in mind when setting your expectations.  The price is $3.99.

Want to read The Cell Window, but don’t like audio books?  You can buy the eBook featuring The Cell Window and eleven other stories in The Fiction of Kosmo, Volume 2 ($3.65).

Want it all, but don’t want to pay the a la carte prices?  The Annual Kosmo Pass (regularly $18, currently $9 + a bonus 2 months) will allow you to download all of Kosmo’s content for an entire year.  We plan to add 3-4 eBooks (10,000 – 20,000 words) per year and are planning to populate the audio book section to include nearly all of the fiction from the site. 

Not satisfied with your purchase? Please email Kosmo at Kosmo@ObservingCasually.com and we’ll refund your money!

The big news over the weekend was Northern Iowa’s victory over top seeded Kansas.  Ali Farokhmanesh once again provided the key shot for UNI, hitting a dagger of a three pointer late in the game.  Ali had about 5 minutes to get set for the shot (look at the replay – he has time to get his feet perfectly set), so it’s hardly a surprised that he was able to knock down the shot.

Northern Iowa’s path to the Elite 8 got a bit smoother yesterday.  Michigan State beat Maryland to advance to the Sweet 16, but they lost star point guard Kalin Lucas to a torn Achilles tendon during the game.

After the game, The Soap Boxers got dozens of Google hits for our NCAA round 1 recap.  We had a brief blurb about Ali and his parents (Cindy Fredrick and Dr. Mashallah Farokhmanesh).  Interestingly, we weren’t getting hits on Ali’s name (as those were probably sucked up by the mainstream sports sites) but we did get hits on his parents’ names – particularly his dad’s.  I’m really not sure why people were searching on his dad’s name – but if some of you folks have become permanent members of The Soap Boxers community, welcome aboard!

In addition to Northern Iowa, several other teams swung by the shoe store and picked up a pair of Cinderella’s glass slippers.  We have a 12 seed (Cornell), an 11 (Washington), and a 10 (St. Mary’s) are still dancing.  In some years, the mere presence of two 6 seeds (Xavier and Tennessee) in the Sweet 16 would be cause for celebration; in a year with 4 teams at an 8 seed of higher, Xavier and Tennessee are simply afterthoughts.

How am I doing in my bracket?  I’m in last place in my pool … and I have a chance to win.  Although two of my Final Four teams have been bounced from the tournament (Kansas and my runner-up, Wisconsin), I’m one of two people who have Syracuse picked to win it all.  If that happens and a few other games break my way, I win.  I’m cautiously optimistic.

The women’s NCAA tournament also got under way this weekend.  There’s usually considerably less drama in the early rounds of the women’s tournament.  One reason for this is that many of the first and second round games are played on the campus of the top seed in that set of four teams – something the men’s tournament forbids.  This helps boost attendance for the women’s tournament, but makes it much more difficult for upsets to occur.

The state of Iowa had three teams in the women’s tournament.  Northern Iowa had punched their ticket by winning the Missouri Conference tournament and entered play on Sunday with a lackluster 17-15 record.  Not surprisingly, #1 seed Nebraska clobbered them 83-44 (although this game was NOT in Lincoln, but Minneapolis).

The University of Iowa was an 8 seed and beat 9 seed Rutgers on Saturday 70-63.  The interesting story in this game was that Rutgers’ coach, Hall of Famer C. Vivian Stringer, was formerly the coach of a very successful program at Iowa.  Stringer is originally from the East, and left Iowa shortly after the death of her husband.  She is still very much respected in Iowa.

My Iowa State Cyclones also had a first round game.  The 4^th seeded Cyclones won their game against Lehigh 79-42.  The best news to come out of the game for ISU was the return of Alison Lacey, who had missed 4 games because of pneumonia.

Notable first round upsets were 12 seed Wisconsin-Green Bay over 5 seed Virginia, 11 seed San Diego State over 6 seed Texas, 11 seed Arkansas-Little Rock over 6 seed Georgia Tech, and 10 seed Vermont over 7 seed Wisconsin.  Top ranked an undefeated Connecticut rolled in their game 95-39 over Southern University.

MY APOLOGIES TO BOB RYAN OF THE BOSTON GLOBE

Dear Bob,

I am officially the Village Idiot. In last week’s article in the Casual Observer, I called out sports columnist Bob Ryan, who is often featured on ESPN’s Sports Reporters and Around the Horn for his incredible comment that Northern Iowa was one of eleven teams in the region that could take down the mighty Jayhawks of Lawrence Kansas.

Bob, I was wrong, you were right, I am eating crow, or my hat, or whatever you want to put on my menu. Just pass the salt and pepper.

Kansas was out-hustled, out shot, and outplayed and looked quite “ordinary” in losing to the Purple Panthers from Northern Iowa.

Upsets galore dominated the first weekend of play in the NCAA men’s tourney. Georgetown goes down, Pittsburgh, New Mexico, and even Villanova all bowed out early.

Most of our brackets are in total free-fall this year, including mine, so what do you do when your brackets go down? You root for all the underdogs so everyone else gets jobbed in their office pools too!

Right now I would say that Syracuse and Kentucky look the most impressive to me after week #1. But that is the beauty of this tourney, it is more than a week long. Some teams will continue to play well next weekend, some won’t and some will start to play a whole lot better. When you get down to sixteen, anything can happen. Heck it already has.

TIGER TRAP

Tiger came out of his den on Sunday and “allowed” two different interviews. One with Tom Rinaldi of ESPN and one with the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman. Both of the interviews where held at Woods’ exclusive Islesworth county club and both were a whopping 5 minutes in length. While it appeared any question was open game, Woods often times said things such as “that is a personal matter” or “that is between Elin and me” aka … there is no freaking way I am going to answer that for you.

Tiger was very guarded as would be expected. The amount of coverage and the amount of sports talking heads hanging on his every word will increase exponentially in the upcoming days and weeks leading up to the Masters. What I am curious to see is how strict the Masters committee will be with the press at Augusta. They run a VERY tight ship, and I am guessing that having four green jackets in your closet likely gets you a little bit of preferential treatment from the committee. The press will be on egg-shells, as it is the toughest ticket in sports, and likely also the toughest place to get press credentials. All it takes is one improperly worded question and you might be shown the gate … It will be interesting to see if any of the sportswriters are willing to take that chance.

I think he will be ultra focused in his return to golf and it would not surprise me in the least if he wins his fifth Masters title this year. After all since winning in 2005 he has a sixth, two seconds and a third place finish … the guy knows this golf course.

PACK OF TWINKIES

The Twins got some good news and some bad news this weekend. First off, their stud closer Joe Nathan is out for the entire year and will be undergoing Tommy John surgery to repair his arm after feeling a “twinge” and taking himself out of a spring training game just a week or so ago. This is a major loss for Minnesota as Nathan has been very consistent and one of the best in the American League over the last few season.

They did lock up all everything catcher Joe Mauer for the next eight years for a whopping twenty three million a year. If you can do quick math that is a 184 million dollar deal. He is really a franchise player and I am sure even to a guy like Mauer it would be hard to spend that much money. Heck just think of what you could do with 184 million dollars …

I for one am sure that would be enough to take Bob Ryan out for a nice dinner and apologize …

I have been travelling a lot recently.  Four hour plane rides every other week for five months, spending two week out of every three on the road for a 45 year old man is stressful.  This has caused several problems, not just the emotional strain of separation form my wife and children.  First there is the weight gain from eating at restaurants.  In my case, I gained almost 10% (more than 20 lbs).  Second there is the discomfort of actual plane travel in smaller planes (MD-80 aircraft are a bit short for my six foot stature).   Third there are the long hours in front of a computer at the remote site, I have nothing else to do but go to the hotel and watch TV (I’m not much of a club hopper).  The combined result is exceptional back pain.

I have taken the opportunity provided by my employer to receive physical therapy.  I cannot compliment the physical therapists enough.  This is not a therapeutic massage, nor is it chiropractic therapy.  The physical therapist determines the cause of the pain, this includes pressure and some massage.  The main effort of the physical therapist is train the patient in stretches and exercise, including just learning how to stand up from a reclined or seated position.  It is two stages; avoid the pain in the first place, then train not to create the painful situation again.

In my case, I apparently have overstressed one side of one vertebra.  The result is the need to stretch in a specific direction.  I also have a ‘closed chest’, meaning that I slouch with my shoulders forward and down due to my poor posture in front of the computer.  The result of this is a need to ‘open’ with both stretched and poster improvement.  The final straw, and what has caused the most pain, is a straightened upper back from the extra weight that I am carrying.  The result of this is the obvious need to loose the weight. 

I am lucky, in that most of my long term travel is over.  So, I have a chance of recovering if I follow the rules that the therapists have established.  Regardless of my travel plans, I intend to follow these rules, if nothing else, to avoid the pain.  I found that I had immediate relief at the therapist, but needed additional sessions to improve my technique for relief at home.  I have also found that most of the exercises are things I can do at work, on the road or at home.

I know that many of you have experienced back pain, from injury, bad habits, or just overwork.  You know how bad it is to not be able to get out of a chair or get out of bed.  I know many swear by chiropractors, but I have a sister in law who is a doctor and who would have a fit if I were to visit one.  Others trust in message therapy.  I am uncomfortable being massaged by any woman other than my wife.  This may be petty, but it is fact.  I you have need, or your other options are not working, I would recommend seeing a physical therapist.  Seeing them is important, but what is more important is following their instructions.

I am a Catholic, and I firmly believe that God created the heavens, the earth, and all the beasts upon the earth – including man.

I am firm believer in the theory of evolution, believing that man evolved from the single cell organisms that once inhabited the earth.

I firmly believe that these beliefs are not in conflict with each other.  I refer to myself alternately as a creationary evolutionist or an evolutionary creationist, depending on which term suits me at that particular moment.

We’ll tackle my belief in science first, since it is the less controversial.  Although evolution is a theory, and not proven fact, I believe that fossil evidence, coupled with other research, clearly shows that Darwin was on the right track when he wrote On the Origin of Species more than 150 years ago.

While the big bang theory does a nice job of explaining what happened during and after the birth of the universe, it begs the disturbing question: what happened BEFORE the big bang?  The theory that the universe expanded from a concentrated point is fine – but how exactly did that single point come to exist?

My personal theory is that God got the ball rolling and let the big bang take things from there.  Is this in conflict with the teachings of the bible?  Not necessarily.

First of all, it’s important to note that the bible of today is not the same as the original bible.  As any work is translated from one language to another, certain nuances are certain to be lost – or added – due to the differences in the languages themselves.

In additional to the fact that certain passage may have been translated inexactly due to differences in languages, there is evidence of several actual errors in the translation process, as a word in one language was mistaken for a word that was physical similar, but very different in meaning.  This wrong word was then translated into a word in the language the bible was being translated into, and the meaning was changed forever.  Some of these errors cause rather major shifts in meanings of certain passages of the bible.  That’s an entirely different can of worms that we could spend much more time on – but we’ll gloss over it today.

My most important reason for believing that evolution and creation are not in conflict is based on the way that Christ himself taught his followers.  He often used parables to explain concepts that would not be well received if told in plain language.

Should we then be surprised if the Old Testament also contains parables – parables that are not obvious to all readers?  If St. Patrick used the shamrock to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to his followers, perhaps God inspired the writers of the Old Testament to use parables of their own.  Perhaps the seven days in Genesis are not to be taken literally, but instead to represent billions of years of evolution.

If God created a single celled organism and pushed it down the evolutionary path toward the eventual end result of man, could it not be said that God created man?  The concept of evolution may have been too advanced for the people of Old Testament times – simplifying into the parables of the seven days of creation may have simply been the easiest way to illustrate the point.

Is this heresy?  I don’t think so.  If we take the alternate view and suppose that the theory of evolution is completely wrong, where does this lead us?  Are we to believe that science has led us down the wrong path?  Are we to accept the advances that science has brought us in many other phases of life while ignoring the scientific evidence of evolution?

I believe that this would be pure folly.  I believe that God gave us science as a way to help us understand the world around us.  Instead of exposing us to the entire base of knowledge at once, he allowed this knowledge to evolve gradually, as scientists continue to make further advances.   Science is a gift, not a curse.

This week’s Fiction Friday comes to you a couple of days late.

Justin settled into his seat in the fourth row of the basketball arena. This was his favorite time of the year. The high school state basketball tournament was in town. It would be wall-to-wall basketball all week.

Justin wasn’t pulling for any particular team. He just enjoyed watching basketball, and you couldn’t argue with the value of tickets to the state tournament – you got a lot of bang for your buck.

Justin took long sip of his drink, and then turned to the man on his left. “Do you expect this to be a good game?” he asked.

“The line’s Harper by ten and a half,” came the curt reply.

“Line?” asked a confused Justin.

“Yeah, the line. You know, the point spread.”

“You can’t gamble on high school sports.”

The stranger laughed. “Certainly you can. You just have to work harder for the information.”

“What kind of information?”

“Well, you have all the basics, of course. The offensive sets and the defenses that each coach likes to run. The strengths and weaknesses of each player, injuries that might cause problems, that sort of thing. Any hack can cobble together that information. But if you’re going to make money betting on the kiddies, you need to take it to the next level.”

“And, what, exactly, is the next level?” asked Justin.

“Mostly, it’s the psychological state of these kids. They are so frail at this age. A girl breaks up with them, they go into a shooting funk. They get laid for the first time, maybe they go into a shooting funk after that – or maybe they go for forty points. Point is, the more you know about what’s bouncing around inside their heads, the more of an advantage you have against the hacks who are just using statistics and computer models. ELO-Chess models are so old fashioned.”

Justin was disturbed – and yet also intrigued. “And how, exactly, do you get this information?”

“Oh, that’s part’s the easiest thing in the world. You just scope out a spy in each school. The rumors bounce around a high school faster a virus. You find a kid who doesn’t have a lot of money and you slip him twenty bucks every once in a while. He spills his guts about everything that’s going on in the school.”

“I assume that you have a spy for this game?”

“Of course. A couple of them, actually. My kid on the Harper side is the student manager. Those kids make great spies. They can’t hack it as a player, so they sit on the bench and pretend they’re part of the team. Most of them have a lot of resentment toward the players.”

“Can you share your information on this game,” asked Justin “or is that privileged.”

“Hey, my bets are all down, so I’ll share. The best tidbit is about Turner, the point guard on Harper. It turns out that his girlfriend has been sleeping with several other players on the team. Suffice it to say that his passes might not be as crisp as you might otherwise expect. The spread might be Harper by ten and a half, but you’d be a fool to take Harper.”

The referee threw the ball into the air for the opening tip and Justin and his new acquaintance ceased their conversation.

Contrary to the expectations of the gambler, Turner was a one man highlight reel during the game. The point guard racked up thirty four points, twelve assists, and grabbed nine rebounds. Perhaps most impressive were the four shots blocked by the five foot five inch dynamo. It was, by all accounts, one of the most dominant performances in state tournament history.

At the far end of the bench, the student manager smiled externally and smiled a big belly laugh internally. After a season of taking money from the gambler, he had double crossed him. Turner and his girlfriend definitively had experienced an emotional week, but not for the reasons he had mentioned. Both students has been accepted into Stanford and would have the opportunity to stay together while also pursuing an education from a top school.  This lifted a huge weight from Turner’s shoulders and had allowed him to focus intently on the game.

Since the birth of my son at the tail end of last year, I have been recording lots of episodes of TruTV’s Forensic Files and watching them during nighttime feedings.  In the past three months, I have watched literally dozens of episodes.  During this time, I’m learned lots of lessons from some of the killers who are, well, not so smart.

Note: we don’t condone any sort of criminal activities.

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice …

Everyone knows that you shouldn’t mess with success.  If something works the first time, you should try it again, right?  Not always.

A recurring theme are men who kill their wives.  Sometimes, after a suspicious – but apparently accidental – death, an anonymous caller will notify the police that the man’s first wife died in similar circumstances.  If the women died in car accidents, you can make the argument that it’s simply coincidence.  Car accidents are fairly common.

If the women both drowned in the bath tub, this is a bit harder to explain away as a coincidence.  This isn’t a particularly common way to die, so the odds of it happening to two of your spouses is pretty unlikely.

Moral of the story: mix it up a little bit.  If you’re going to kill multiple spouses, you need to use different methods.  Or, of course, you could simply refrain from killing people.

Failure to observer a proper mourning period

Everyone has a different length of time for mourning.  Some people never get over the death of a spouse.  Others are able to move past the tragedy and eventually find love again.

But if you return from Vegas with a new wife a couple of weeks after your first wife died, police are probably going to take a second look at you as a suspect.

In one particularly notable case, the husband and his fiancée actually sent out wedding invitations (just to HER family and friends, apparently) BEFORE the first wife was dead.  I guess this is somewhat understandable, since people need to be able to save the date on their calendar.

Moral: Thirty days hath September, April, June, and minimum mourning periods.

Gotta give them credit

Every once in a while, the cops are able to determined that a killer purchased poison (or other items involved in the crime) by examining credit card receipts.  Apparently, the term “paper trail” means nothing to these people.

Moral: Cash is king!

Not what it’s cracked up to be

When examining broken windows at a crime scene, the cops check to see if the window was broken from the outside or the inside.  If the window was broken from the outside, most of the glass will fall inward.  If it is broken from the inside, most of the glass will fall on the outside.

Since the vast majority of criminals break into houses rather than out of them,  when there are indications that a window was broken from the inside, it typically means that the scene was staged.

Moral: Take a moment and actually step through the crime scene, starting at the point of entry.  If you’re going to kill someone, you needn’t be lazy with the details.