J.J. Byrne's New Playground - Photo by Virginia Rollison

There was a girl that said to her mom, “Mommy” and then she said “I can fit in the the tub” and she pointed at her butt and then she said “I peed in my pants” and she laughed. The woman laughed.
- Felix after visiting the new Old Stone House Playground for the first time ever.

That’s according to an article in this month’s Scientific American. This news was all over the Interwebs since the notes pertain to the same Mayan calendar many believed predicted the world’s end on December 22, 2012, the beginning of a new calendar cycle called a baktun.

The researchers mentioned in the article discovered a six-foot square room whose walls are covered with 1,200-year-old astronomical records of Mayan scribes. The newly discovered calculations suggest the Maya were projecting dates 6000 years into the future. Sounds like another doomsday prediction was wrong.

Maya Calendar (Photo credit: Xiaozhuli)

The new discovery is more than 600 years older than other Mayan calendars and is believed to be a more definitive source for their predictions. So maybe we can all rest a little easier.

Her’es BoingBoing’s take on this discovery.

…widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.

In our house, we’ve read and re-read and re-read Where The Wild Things Are and gone through three sets of the tiny red four-box set. Lately, I have been quoting Pierre’s obnoxious “I DON’T CARE,” over and over again.

Lest we forget, he also illustrated the very sweet A Kiss for Little Bear with its famous “too much kissing.”

In book after book, Mr. Sendak upended the staid, centuries-old tradition of American children’s literature, in which young heroes and heroines were typically well scrubbed and even better behaved; nothing really bad ever happened for very long; and everything was tied up at the end in a neat, moralistic bow.

He will be missed but will, through his books, live on.

Here’s the link to the Times obituary.

—————-

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I love the story of how they met, were married, and spent their honeymoon and want to share some of this with you. Especially, since there are some interesting historical parallels between my parents, my sister and her husband, and Kristen and I.

My father met my mother in Los Angeles in 1961. They were introduced by his friend, Jack Graf, who was married to my mother’s cousin, Mimi. Mimi, like my mom and dad, is Panamanian.

My dad grew up in Cotito in Chiriqui, Panama’s western-most province, on the border with Costa Rica. My mother grew up in Panama City but would spend her summers and holidays about 45 miles away from Cotito in the town of Dolega.

Perhaps it’s a coincidence that they were introduced. However, 35 years later, my sister would meet her husband, Scott, in New York City. She grew up in Ventura, he grew up in Simi Valley, about 30 miles away from each other.

I’m not clear how many times my parents dated in the States (my mom says “Not too many.”), but they drove by land to Panama with Jack, Mimi and their two kids. My mom says they would only date four-five times in Panama, but since they had already spent 10 days driving together through Central America, I’m sure they had already started to get to know each other.

In Panama, my grandmother didn’t approve of my dad. My grandmother’s sister said, “Tiene cara de mujeriego… He has the face of a womanizer.”

After being in Panama for a month, my father asked my mother to marry him. My mom says, he asked because he knew he would lose her if he went to the States without her.

When my mother accepted, her mother (my grandmother) and her sister predicted the marriage wouldn’t last because they had only dated a few times. Especially since my grandmother and my grandfather dated for nearly six years before getting married. They predicted the marriage would be cut short. Boy were they ever wrong.

According to my mom, my father said he’d always wanted to marry a school teacher. My mom had graduated from the La Escuela Normal de Panama and was working as a schoolteacher. (Here’s another coincidence, my wife, Kristen, is a schoolteacher and her mother and sister are both teachers. I find the way family history repeats itself is very interesting.)

The wedding was organized very quickly. My parents wanted to get married and get back to the States. My grandfather was working in Darien, the untamed Panamian province that borders Colombia and arrived to find all of the preparations were underway.

They spent their honeymoon in El Valle de Anton, a sleepy mountain town about two hours from Panama City. My mom says she slept through most of it since her mother had given her a Valium to deal with the stress of being newly married. On the third day, my grandfather and my uncles showed. They had continued the post-wedding bash after my parents had left and brought the top layer of the wedding cake with them, saying my parents had forgotten to take it with them.

After that, they back moved to Los Angeles, then to Sacramento (where I was born), back to Downey (where my sister was born), and finally to Ventura.

During the course of their 50 years of being married, they raised the two of us, had successful careers, traveled all over the world, and have another 50 years to look forward to.

Our family friend, Dustan Howard, pointed out that my mother still looks at my dad like the young girl that he had seen in photographs. The way they look at each other speaks of the love they have shared and share.

I am happy to see and share that and to write about that and the coincidences that make life so interesting. It’s those coincidences that inspire me to write and have kept me writing when I’ve grown tired with the whole business of it.

I am also happy to have been able to share this special anniversary with them and their closest friends.

Fifty years is a significant amount of time. Over and over again people said to me, “You just don’t see that too much these days.” It’s nice to know my parents did it and that type of commitment does happen.

Happy Anniversary mom and dad.

I’m between novels.

That means I just finished one and am gearing up for the next one. I’m lucky in that I usually know what I’m writing next (the next novel involves Hernán Cortez, there’s a screenplay about cloning dragons that needs revising, and a space opera that keeps begging for attention).

Orozco's Hernan Cortes. What happens when he arrives in modern day Mexico?

(OK, THE COLUMBUS CIRCLE OF TIME is not finished until it’s published and it’s not yet published, so I know I’ve got several drafts to go — especially after my first meeting with an editor today. But if you’re interested in how the revision process can work, my hero and friend, YA goddess, Gayle Forman recently compared a draft of WHERE SHE WENT to the final product and how her editor helped her through the revision process.)

Usually, I have one or more creative projects underway. I’ve been in that creative state for more than 20 years now. During that time, I took a three-year hiatus from fiction. I thought I’d be able to go cold turkey, but it turns out, I’m more of a junkie jonesing for a fiction fix than I care to admit. In retrospect, I needed to take some time, gain some distance from that part of my personality and, in doing so, I realized I didn’t like not having a creative project. I guess I’m addicted to writing fiction.

Right now, I’m taking a small break from fiction. It could be a week or two or a month before I get back into it. But just because I’m not putting out 4,000 to 5,000 words a day doesn’t mean I’m not writing, or plotting, or thinking about the next few projects.

Here’s five things I’m doing that you can apply to your own time between projects.

1. Market. One of my marketing gurus constantly reminds his students: What business are you in? What business are you really in?

It’s his way of reminding business owners (and writers) that you have to market your product. Whether you’re selling a Mexican restaurant, custom DNA sequence(r)s, military drones, or young adult science fiction novels, you’re really in the marketing business.

In the past, I neglected this. I thought that my brilliant writing would be enough to get me published everywhere. The money would just roll in. I learned the hard way it just isn’t so. It’s a lesson that has schooled me repeatedly, but that’s a story for another post.

These days, I have a plan. I take time every three months to plan what I want to accomplish and how I’ll accomplish it. It’s pretty easy. In doing so, I no longer have to think about what needs to be done, I just need to execute. Just like everyone else, I have a short attention span and have been a victim of “shiny object syndrome.” Having a plan in place keeps me focused and moving forward.

When I’m between projects I also spend more time marketing my other business. You know, the one that pays the bills. Creating a plan doesn’t have to be that difficult.

RESOURCE: Peter Vogopoulous over at ThinkTrafficc.com has a terrific post called Why Blogging Without a Plan Leads to Failure and How to Fix It that highlights how to create a strategic plan for blogging. Creating a strategic plan for marketing your services or your product isn’t that different.

2. Read. A lot.

I’m always reading. I’m still one of those people who gets sucked into a book and will spend the night turning pages until dawn breaks. When I get into a longer project, I try to curtail my reading  and stick stuff that is unrelated to what I’m writing.

Hernán Cortés again. What is it with this guy? He burned the boats, remember?

Since I know my next few projects are about reptilian cloning, Hernán Cortes, and drug-induced space travel, with the exception of a biography of Cortes, I am staying away from those topics.

Instead, I’m reading Abundance, learning about Minecraft, synthetic biology and the difference between the Common Disease-Common Variant theory and the Common Disease-Rare Variant theory. I’m reading a biography of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, how to trade like Warren Buffet, and the origins of punk rock and avant garde classical. I’m reading an introduction to topology, the origins of language, startup culture, and Abundance.

I’m also getting caught up on blogs about medical devices, theories of social networking, and spending way too much time on Reddit.

My suggestion to all writers or anyone looking for an idea: read far and wide.

That said, the one time I was between books and didn’t know what I would write next (it was nothing like Fellini’s 8 1/2, I swear), I stuck to my genre. I have a feeling that when the time comes to write that space opera, I’ll start reading the great ones to get that genre down in my head.

SUGGESTION: Unsure what to read? Head to the library or a bookstore for an uninterrupted couple of hours. Walk around and pick up every book that interests you. When you can carry any more, park yourself at a table and start going through each book. Come up with a system for determining if you want to learn more. Your goal is to only find subjects that are interesting to you. Take notes. See if you get any ideas from that exercise.

3. Watch Movies. Great artists steal, right?

I usually watch movies at a pretty good clip – two-three per week. I had a boss who would spend his weekends watching movies straight through. It was the only way he could pull himself from his work and relax.

Before I start working on a project, I usually have a very specific list of movies I watch so I can study the composition of the scenes, the pacing, the juxtapositions between the visuals and the emotions the writer and director worked to achieve (or failed to achieve – failure can often be more instructive than success). I like to study those movies to see if there might be an idea that I could use myself.

Between projects, like I am right now, I’ll be much more more random about my movie-watching. I’ll watch genres that I would normally never think about watching. I’ll ask my friends what they’ve watched that is interesting. I’ll scan Netflix to see what piques my interest.

Last week, I watched the German comedy of manners, Agnes and Her Brothers. Over the weekend, I watched Youth In Revolt. I just started Marilyn Monroe’s The Seven Year Itch. And for the past day or two, I’ve been thinking I’d like to see The Graduate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and What’s Up Tiger Lilly?

There are several Japanese, Korean, Mexican, and Swedish movies, a couple of directors, even a couple of cinematographers on my list.

I do the same thing with music.

In a future blog post, I’ll write about the movies I have watched repeatedly for inspiration and how that has worked out for me.

SUGGESTION: Want to expose yourself to more movies? If you’ve got a subscription to Netflix, it’s pretty easy to choose genres and pick movies pretty randomly. But if you find something you like, why not find out who wrote it, who directed it and find other movies they’ve done. I have friends who watch movies this way based on actors.

4. Work Out. I’ve gotten pretty good at working out three times per week. I’m trying to get pretty good at working out four times per week.

If I had my way, I’d do something physical enough to get me out of breath at least once a day. I’ve come to realize it is one of the few ways I can get outside of my head and do something that is good for me.

These days, my focus is on yoga and biking. I’ve been riding about 45 miles per week. I’d like to start participating in some group rides and a voice in me has been saying it might be time to train for a triathalon.

QUESTION: Are you working out enough? What are you doing to stay healthy?

5. Socialize. When I’m working on a novel or screenplay, I’m pretty monastic. I’m not anti-social, I just know there are several characters in my head waiting to get out and there are situations that need to be documented as accurately as they can be.

Sometimes, being around my friends is the only thing that gets me out of my head – but not always. I’ve been known to leave in the middle of a conversation because an idea, a bit of dialogue, or the solution to a problem has finally showed it’s head.

(If you’ve ever been with me when that has happened, I apologize. I can’t promise it won’t happen again.)

So what am I doing now? Making more phone calls. Talking to people I haven’t spoken to in ages. Arranging coffee dates, lunches, and drinks at least once a week.

SUGGESTION: Is there anyone you’re out of touch with that you haven’t talked to in years? Why not pick up the phone and call them. Go back through email messages from two, five years ago and pick up threads of conversations like they never ended. See what happend. Bet you’ll find it can be very energizing and inspiring.

6. Write. Just because I’m not working on a lengthy project doesn’t mean I’m not writing.

My business is writing and writing is my business so I’m pretty much always writing.

Whether it’s a journal entry, business or marketing plan, proposal, a blog post, a branding strategy, an article or an editorial, there are words going down onto the screen every day.

If I’m not writing, then I’m not generating ideas and all those longer pieces, all the non-fiction pieces come from ideas I get while reading, watching movies, listening to music, hanging out with my friends and working out.

At the very least, I’m writing lists. Lists of things to do. Lists of places I want to visit. People I want to meet. Stories and articles I want to write. Businesses I want to start. Bucket lists. Lists of crap I no longer need. Lists of memories I don’t want to forget. Lists of things I am grateful for.

SUGGESTION:  Sit down and write a list of things you are grateful for. Start with your health. Then go through your family and friends, the place you live and the places you wished you could live. Why not do that for a couple of days and see how that affects you.

If you’ve ever been between writing projects let me know. I’d love to know what you do.

Their reasoning?

The Hunger Games is a rip-off of the Japanese movie Battle Royale.

How’s that? Both stories involve a group teenagers fighting to the death for the amusement of a watching populace.

I recently watched the Battle Royale film (it had been a thin novel and a popular manga), have read the entire The Hunger Games trilogy and saw the movie on Saturday night. I’ve also read the debate. Just last week, The Wall Street Journal stepped in with ‘Hunger Games’ vs. ‘Battle Royale‘ which gives several quick-hits from several websites.

Comments range from “Hunger Games” = “Battle Royale” to “There is almost nothing similar about these two stories except the core idea for the plot.”

Hunger Games Author Suzanne Collins has denied she knew about Battle Royale and cites the Greek myth of Theseus (he slayed the Minoatur, remember?) as the basis for the story. That, and channel surfing TV (which BTW has inspired the screenplay I wrote with Jeff Caldwell, THE DRAGON BURNS). Collins apparently noticed the absurd juxtaposition of Iraq war footage and reality TV shows. The only people that notice that type of absurdity are authors or comedians.

While there are parallels, the two stories are different enough to make them interesting and to remind us that in general, Hollywood only recycles ideas (uh, 21 Jump Street anyone?).

Because of that, I thought I’d include several quotes from Austin Kleon‘s Steal Like An Artist as a reminder that as Picasso noted, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

My hobbie (one of them anyway)… is using a lot of scotch tape… My hobbie is to pick out different things during what I read and piece them together to make a story of my own. – Louis Armstrong

Our souls as well as our bodies are composes of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors. The “newness” in the individual psyche is an endlessly varied recombination of age-old components. – Carl Jung

It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to. – Jean-Luc Godard

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. – T.S. Eliot

I wanted to hear music that had not yet happened, by putting together things that suggested a new thing which did not yet exist. – Brian Eno

If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research. – Wilson Mizner

If you have one person you’re influenced by, everyone will say you’re the next whoever. But if you rip off a hundred people, everyone will say you’re so original. – Gary Panter

William S. Burroughs master-literary-borrower and inventor of the cut-up

All writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read heard overheard. What else? – William S. Burroughs

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. - Jim Jarmusch

 

Even if Suzanne Collins did borrow from Battle Royale, she created something new that took on a life of its own. Along with her co-writer and Hollywood team, she created what looks to be a powerful movie franchise. Good on her.

One more thing. The Wall Street Journal article points out:

[Battle Royale] has nevertheless been impacted by its explosive arrival on the pop-culture landscape — [The Hunger Games] seems destined for a $100 million-dollar-plus opening, maybe even taking away the box-office record from the last installment of “Harry Potter,” which earned $169 million in its first-weekend bow.

For its author, Koushun Takami, that’s probably a great thing.

The premise of Stranded (Naufragos) sounded promising – especially, since it’s a Spanish science fiction movie  and you don’t see too many of those. The director — María Lidón — won the Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver, and the actors Vincent Gallo and Maria de Medeiros were named best actors at Rome’s 2002 Fantafestival.

Unfortunately, the movie started to falling apart during the endless credits that set up the story. The ship’s captain dies upon the impact with the Red Planet and the “mother ship” immediately leaves for earth.

When Lidón’s character takes over as captain, she acts timidly. It’s as if she is not prepared for the role of captain. There is continued arguing among crew members. Sleep seems to be an issue. The crew operates randomly, as if contingency plans didn’t exist, and they look to Vincent Gallo’s character for leadership but all of his decisions seem to be aimed at spending time with Maria de Medeiros character. Alone. (This is hinted at when he comes out of the bathroom and puts away a CYBERSEX magazine.)

As the situation unfolded and it becomes clear that only two people can survive the long wait for a rescue mission, the stranded crew members begin leaving the ship.

Outside, the landscapes reminded me of Sergio Leone’s Spain enhanced with CGI to appear red. The space suits the cast didn’t look like they were designed for the Martian atmosphere.

Eventually, the captain and one her crew, played by Joaquim de Almeida, eventually discover the remnants of an ancient civilization that will allow them to stay alive. Unfortunately, Joaquim dies.

As I watched, I kept asking myself: Wouldn’t there be contingency plans in case the ship crashed? Wouldn’t the people on the ship know how to survive on Mars? Wouldn’t the mother ship stay in orbit? Why would it leave?

From a storyteller’s point of view, I kept asking myself: How do you build suspense? It takes more than just a situation and dialogue. The stakes were never high to begin with and the tension just didn’t ratchet up.

After I had read STRANDED has won European awards, I couldn’t help but wonder, What did they compete against?

Overall, the poor dialogue, the cheesy visual effects, the cardboard acting and the unrealistic situation added up to a disappointing story.

According to Colfer “Artemis’s story always had to end with him being a hero. He had to go from being a selfish criminal to a hero who is prepared to sacrifice everything for a good cause. In this case, the cause is the lives of everyone he loves, whether he sacrifices everything or not will be revealed in the final chapter.”

USAToday just published an excerpt here. It looks to be a good one with the return of Artemis, his bodyguard, Butler, Commander Holly Short of the Lower Elements ReCon, and the evil, Opal Koboi,

Certified genius pixie industrialist and inventor. Orchestrated the goblin coup and insurrection. Cloned herself to escape prison and attempted to lead the humans to Haven. Responsible for the murder of Commander Julius Root. Had human pituitary gland grafted to manufacture growth hormone (subsequently removed). Younger version of Opal followed Captain Short from the past and is currently at large in present time line. It is assumed that she will attempt to free her incarcerated self and return to her own time stream. Opal is in the unprecedented position of occupying places one and two on the LEP Most Dangerous list. Categorized as highly intelligent, motivated, and psychotic.

Here are some teasers from the teaser:

[In a fairy psychologist's office:]

[Artemis] “Dr. Argon, did you have turned-in feet as a child?”

Argon was so surprised that he blurted an honest answer to a personal question, very unusual for a psychiatrist. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“And were you forced to wear remedial shoes with stacked soles?”

Argon was intrigued. He hadn’t thought about those horrible shoes in centuries; he had actually forgotten them until this moment.

“Just one, on my right foot.”

Artemis nodded wisely, and Argon felt as though their roles had been reversed and he was the patient.

“I would guess that your foot was pulled into its correct alignment, but your femur was twisted slightly in the process. A simple brace should solve your hip problem.” Artemis pulled a folded napkin from his pocket. “I sketched a design while you kept me waiting these past few sessions. Foaly should be able to build the brace for you. I may have been a few millimeters off with my estimate of your dimensions, so best to get measured.” He placed ten fingers flat on the desk. “May I leave now? Have I fulfilled my obligation?”

The doctor nodded glumly, thinking that he would possibly omit this session from his book. He watched Artemis stride across the office floor and duck through the doorway.

[Making their way across the fairy city, deep under earth]
Artemis had never been one for public transport, human or fairy, and so asked, “What’s the stick?”

The Stick was the street name for a series of conveyor belts that ran in parallel strips along Haven City’s network of blocks. It was an ancient and reliable mode of transport from a less litigious time, which operated on a hop-on / hop-off system similar to certain human airport-walkway systems. There were platforms throughout the city, and all a person had to do was step on a belt and grab hold of one of the carbon-fiber stalks that sprouted upward from it. Hence the name Stick.

Artemis and Butler had of course seen the Stick before, but Artemis had never planned to use such an undignified mode of transport and so had never even bothered to find out its name. Artemis knew that, with his famous lack of coordination, any attempt to hop casually onto the belt would result in a humiliating tumble. For Butler, the problem was not one of coordination or lack of it. He knew that, with his bulk, it would be difficult just to keep his feet inside the belt’s width.

# ! # ! #

You may be interested in my reviews of the Artemis Fowl Series:
Artemis 3: The Eternity Code
Artemis 2: The Arctic Incident

1. Kristen. The love of my life who puts up with me every day. She laughs at my dumb jokes and keeps me laughing with her smart ones. She always impresses me with her smarts and creativity. She has helped make me the great father that I know I am and she makes sure I eat healthy and work out. Without her, I’d be 30 pounds heavier.
2. My boys Alejandro, Tomás, and Felix. Recent quotes: Felix (asking about languages): Are Chinese and French friends? Alejandro: Biotechnology is so boring. Tomás (doing the calculation in his head): 4 times 33 plus 3 times 15 is 177.
3. My parents, Albert Schmieder and Rosario Laws Wong Schmieder. Albert, the hard worker, inspires me to put in the time and then some. Rosario has inspired me to be a life-long learner. Together, their continued criss-crossing the globe inspire me to keep traveling. Thanks Mom and Dad for everything you’ve done and continue to do.
4. My sister, Kirsten. She’s been there with me from the beginning. I have memories of us playing with toy campers in the old living room, sleeping in my dad’s camper while he worked an early shift in Carpinteria. I remember coming home too late with her from punk shows in L.A. and growing up together. Now we’re lucky enough to talk to each other about good and bad business ideas, watch share our kids as they grow up. Kirsten, you are awesome! 
5. Her husband, Scott, and their kids, A.J. and Violeta.  
6. My in-laws, Tony and Linda, and Katherine and Michael Adamczyk family.
7. My friends Ed, John, Max, Tab (for being there from the beginning), Tom (you too!), Ivan (for publishing Bushwhacker first!), Laura, Russell (for more reasons than you know why), Janet, Doug, Pear, and Jeff for helping me keep it real and being there when I’ve needed you most.
8. Aurora Laws Wong, my maternal grandmother, who turned 102 in January. 102! Born in the Bocas del Toro province of Panama, she moved and grew up in Chiriqui, the province on the Costa Rican border. Later, she moved to Panama City where she worked as a teacher and administrator. She and her sister, Elidia, made their mark on the Panamanian school system, eventually becoming administrators and helping to create curriculums (curricula) that were used across the very developing Isthmus. Abuela Aurora and my grandfather, Malcolm, were a major presence growing up.
9. 8th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn because in a two-block radius I’ve got four banks, three bars, two grocery stores, a Subway restaurant, a liquor store, a Korean deli, a Turkish deli, Chinese, Thai, Mexican restaurans, a hardware store, a store that literally sells everything, a men’s clothing store, two Chinese Qi Gong massage parlors, a post office, two gyms, a record store (!), a florist, and a pediatrician’s office.
10. New York City. I was a freshman at UC Riverside in 1982. I’d escape from my pre-med studies by reading newspapers and magazines about music and Brazil and driving an hour-hour-and-half into L.A. two-three times per week to see bands play. I started reading the NY Rocker and the Village Voice and realized all the bands I wanted to see were playing a half-dozen clubs a few blocks from each other. I decided at some point in my future I’d leave Los Angeles and move to the only city in the United States with a fantastic public transportation system. After college I moved to Boston, then New Orleans, then Boulder and Denver. Kristen and I were dating and the only place it made sense for the two of us to move to from a professional point of view was New York City. Naropa, Anne Waldman, Allen Ginsburg and his apartment on 12th Street and the Democratice Convention of 1992 pushed that dream forward. Nearly twenty years later, here I am home.
11. Ventura, California, the town I grew up in. Small-town, beach-town, surf-facing. With Los Angeles only an hour away. I never grow tired of going back.
12. The schools I attended: Juanamaria Elementary School, Cabrillo Junior High, College Champittet (Lausanne, Switzerland), St. Bonaventure, Ventura College, UC Riverside, U Mass Boston, Harvard University, and the Naropa Institute.
13. Every job I’ve ever held, from Airway Glass to MessagingLab, One Eleven, and Bridge 6.
14. Every clients I’ve ever had, from Openwave and Yahoo! to the many many many emerging startups. I’ve learned something from each of you (but I can’t say that I’ve always listened and continue to get schooled).
15. Cosey Fani Tutti of Throbbing Gristle for granting me my first interview, published in Unsound back in 1983 or so. That interview marked the first of many music interviews and reviews that turned into an ongoing series of entrepreneur interviews.
16. Entrepreneurialism and running my own business for 10+ years. It inspires, humbles and kicks my ass every single day.
17. My career as a biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical marketing communications pro. How can I beat writing science fact for a living? I fall in love with every product and every story I help my clients tell.
18. My typing/keyboard skills, learned while still a teenager on my mom’s huge, manual Royal typewriter. 
19. Growing up speaking Spanish and passing that on to my sons and inspiring my wife.
20. My books: Bushwhacker, Working the Honey Stick, Fifteen Minute Confession and The Columbus Circle of Time.
21. My screenplays: Girl on Third, Environmental Studies, Downward Dog and The Dragon Burns.
22. The books and screenplays I have yet to write.
23. Paris-Lausanne 1978. The trip I took with my mom. Especially the part where in Paris she (1) let me skateboard in front of the Eiffel Tower and (2) took me to see an arty French strip show and let me drink the champagne.
24. My language skills. In addition to Spanish, I speak French pretty well; Italian OK; Portuguese decently; and, on occasion, hack my way through German. I have studied Finnish and Sanskrit. I plan to improve my Portuguese soon then learn Chinese, and then who knows? Hindi? Russian? Swahili?
25. Skateboarding and somehow convincing my parents to take me to nearly every skateboard park in Southern California and eventually becoming into my own homepark, The Endless Wave in Oxnard, California. 
26. Panama 1983 because that’s when my sister and I traveled alone to visit my grandmother – Margarita Haug – and we took her to Costa Rica. That was the last time I saw her. She passed away a couple of years later.
27. Punk Rock 1978-1984, industrial music-(deep minimal) ambient-IDM-experimental 1981-present. Rock en Español 2004-present. The soundtrack of my life.
    

    Deep, minimal ambient. Always.

28. Living in Denver. Going to Naropa in Boulder. Dating Kristen in Albuquerque.
29. Panama 1993 because that’s when Kristen and I, newly married, took our honeymoon there, then started traveling regularly to hang out with my grandparents, Malcolm and Aurora. We have criss-crossed the Isthmus, visiting more places than most native Panamanians but there is still plenty to cover.
    
30. Panama 2004, because that’s when Kristen and I moved to Panama so that Alejandro could attend kindergarten become bilingual and we could get ourselves out of New York for a year or so.
31. 17+ years of yoga practice on and off and the perspective to see how it has evolved as it has gained popularity.
32. New York City’s art galleries, museums and movie theaters.
33. The Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and the Brooklyn Museum of Art because on a rainy day, there are no better places to take three boys to run off their energy while absorbing some knowledge and culture.
34. Biotechnology, the life sciences, medical devices and pharmaceuticals. Science fiction becomes science fact to save lives and I am a humble part of this. 
35. Bodyboarding. We were in Costa Rica, south of Jaco Beach and this waves rolls in. Head high, it breaks in a perfect small tube and it is totally empty. “I have to learn to surf,” I said to Kristen. I’d grown in Surftown USA and had – as a skateboarder – decided at a teenager that I would never surf. That wave changed my mind. I was 33. I started bodyboarding the next year and have, since then, surfed all over Long Island, Panama, in Puerto Rico, Newport Beach, and those breaks I avoided as a kid in Ventura. I’m going to add Costa Rica this summer and plan to add
36. South America because I haven’t been yet and it looms large. Peru, Chile, Brazil and Argentina.
37. The fantastic people I’ve worked with over the years.
38. P.S.29, the elementary school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn where Kristen teaches art, Alejandro graduated, and Tomás and Felix now attend.
39. The time my son are spend with their grandparents, my parents and my in-laws. There is no pleasure greater than watching your parents interact with your children. The love they share is very special indeed and I look forward to someday sharing the same with my sons’ kids.
40. The two Volkswagen Beetles I owned (1970 and 2000). I always wanted a Beetle but didn’t get one until I bought a dark blue 1970 in Boulder. I drove that car from Denver to Albuquerque uncountable times and we brought the car to Brooklyn. We had to give it up because the sunroof leaked and the motor blew. Getting rid of it was sad. So, a few years later we leased a silver New Beetle that was a blast to drive. The family grew and grew again and, again, it didn’t make sense to have a car  now we’re in mini-van land, still thinking about those little cars and how great they were.
41. Bicycling. I had lived in Brooklyn for more than a decade before I started biking and as soon as I did I wondered, Why did it take me so long? I’ve been lucky to do some nice long rides in the Adirondacks, rode the New York Century (35 miles). For this birthday, I bought myself a new road bike and plan to hundreds (thousands!) of miles on it.
42. The thousands of books, movies and TV shows that have inspired me and inspire me every time I sit down in front of a blank screen or a blank sheet of paper to tell a story. I love a great story and will always stop to listen, absorb and learn.
43. The writers at the New York Review of Science Fiction and the KGB Fantastic Fiction events. Thanks for the inspiration and for trodding a path I am quietly following.
44. The innumerable Apple Macintoshes that I have owned over the years. I currently have a tremendous MacBook Air, which I think is the best Apple I’ve ever owned. Thinking about my original beige-colored Mac, the multiple PowerBooks I’ve owned makes me happy because they all worked. 
45. Hiking the Colorado Rockies, the Catskills, the Adirondacks and random jungle trails in Costa Rica and Panama with Kristen.
46. My meditation practice. Inspired by my yoga practice and helping to “cool” me down, I now understand why “the purpose of yoga is to prepare the mind for meditation.”
47. Journals. I’ve been keeping one for more than 25 years and it has served me well. My father had suggested I keep one starting just after college when I went on a 4-week Eurorail trip by my self. Little did he know the journal would become a constant companion. Since then, I’ve written about business ideas, story ideas, have worked through issues with bosses and work, have invented new worlds, practiced my language skills, given a lot of love and some hate to different people in my life and writing it all down has kept me honest in the process.
48. My health and the efforts I make to stay healthy by eating right, exercising and now, trying, trying, trying to sleep regularly.
49. Legos. For driving me absolutely crazy and keeping my boys occupied all the time.
    

    Currently, under construction at my house

50. [And for posterity, one more thing...] The 20,000+ people in my online networks because I know that through you I am one person away from anyone I want to know. Thanks.

Black Flag circa 1981

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The first days were a jolt because they were living hard and low to the ground and I had no experience like that before. It was a bend in the road as they say. I had worked hard all my short life at multiple jobs. I thought I was quite the hard-working taskmaster type. [Greg] Ginn was ten times that. When I first joined the band, we got into a rehearsal regimen that was quite an undertaking. We were at it hours a day. I thought that a few days in, I was ready. Ginn told me I was nowhere near ready. A month later, I saw that he was right of course. By the time we hit the stage there was no nervousness on my part. I knew my stuff. IT was not a warm-up show. We went out there and kicked their asses

-Henry Rollins, We Got the Neutron Bomb, The Untold Story of L.A. Punk