Briefly, an update.

A year ago today we arrived in Detroit Lakes, MN.
Everything on hold, nothing certain.
 

I continued to buy books and other assorted items throughout the year but my intake was a tenth of what I would have normally procured in Denver.
The rural ‘pick’ is a tough slog.
Though certain gems have presented themselves to me the quantity of the finds has been sparse.

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We have yet to get Cibado up and running in any sense of the word.
The small amount of leather and tools we brought with us not to mention the lack of a space to work have made it difficult to create a one of a kind hand sewn bag. Cigdem’s frustration with being removed from the creative process, the loss of her studio and work environment along with a rather abrupt change from urban to rural living has been a challenge.
I feel her pain.

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We are living in a small studio in DL that we rent on a short term basis.
Nothing special but it’s new, clean and mostly affordable.
While we live here we are actively looking at purchasing a house somewhere in the area.
A place where we can set up a proper studio for Cigdem as well as a place for all our stuff that we left in storage in CO.
Something with acreage and outbuildings would be nice.

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I have been at a new, non-tech job for 4 months now. The hours are long and I’m on the road a lot.

My employer graciously took me in when others would not and saved me from the seemingly only other options I had available which were line jobs at local manufacturing companies.
I’m not sure how I would have handled working the 3rd shift or something more…unfortunate.

I am very thankful to have the job and the benefits and perks are good. I haven’t had a lot of free time to work on books, the website, this blog or to read.

Not complaining, just saying is all. 

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Last year will be added to the origin stories of Cibado and Neutral Good Books…hell, maybe it’s their true beginnings.

We are, still in this fight.

Thanks and gratitude to all our friends and family who have supported us in the last year…you damn well know who you are!

A shout out to the following folks who played a very special part in making last year possible: Bill, Sue, Dave and Lori 
Without your short shortsightedness, cowardly actions and chickenshit decisions we may have never escaped the prison we were unknowingly trapped in.

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This week I mark 2 years of sobriety and the last of the small dates to note it.

After this there are only the large dates at 5 years, 10 years, 20 years and finally 40.

I wasn’t sure if quitting would take or not and honestly I was concerned that I couldn’t.
I had no idea what the extent of my addiction was or if I would need to seek outside help to quit, which would never have happened. I had managed to quite tobacco years before, that was brutal, so I wasn’t sure what getting off the booze would look like. I just felt, deep down, that I needed to quit.

Anyway, for me it began after a particularly rough night of excess. I wouldn’t call it ‘hitting rock bottom’, just another random week night of too much cheap vodka from a plastic bottle.
The early morning commute in traffic to work the next day with a raging hangover, the recovery during the day in a dingy beige cubicle lit in cold fluorescent light and an even longer commute home in more traffic was my tipping point.
I started that night.

I set small goals and kept adding to them.
I told myself that if I could do 1 day without drink, then I could probably do 2 days.

And if I could do 2 days, I certainly could do 3.

If I could do 3 days, I could make the effort to do a week.

1 week then 2.

2 weeks then a month.
This was a big one and I felt that at this point the real hard part was over for me.

1 month turned into 3 months.

3 months turned to 6.

6 months, a year.
This felt like an accomplishment.

Last year, the covid year of job loss, home loss, moving, lifestyle upheaval and so many other things offered many excuses to get off the wagon, to say ‘Fuck it!’ and tip up a bottle again.
But it didn’t happen.
And this week is now 2 years.

I’ll check back again at 5.

\m/

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Shortly after returning from our trip to Arkansas at the end  
of August we noticed a marked change in the days here in  
Minnesota, most notably the temperatures.
Though still very mild and pleasant we began to feel Autumn’s  
approach.
Looking across the lake at the shoreline I began to see hints of a change in the trees, early adopters were beginning to show color.

As the remaining weeks of summer ticked down to the solstice  
and into an earnest start of Autumn, recreational activities  
on a lake have waned. More and more lake folk have pulled in their docks and boats, including us.Lawn furniture is being put away.North winds off the lake have increased in volume and strength.
Hunter’s shotguns thump in the dawn now, duck season has begun.
The first frost of the year, albeit light, paid us visit last  
Sunday morning.A general quieting around the lake has taken hold.

So with all that and after taking a realistic look at what was happening in our little world we have decided it best to stay here for the winter.
There are many reasons for the decision, far too many for me  
to talk to here and honestly, I’m exhausted from thinking  
through it at this point.
So, like all the other unplanned and unexpected things this  
year we are excepting it and planning to use this time to our  
advantage.
There are a lot of things that have been neglected over the years that simply needed time to sort through.
We now have that time and by all graces a place to live rent free.

That said, we are making a quick run back to Denver to pick up much needed winter gear and clothing, and a restock of essential items that are difficult to find, expensive to purchase or are out right unavailable in this area.
We’re also bringing back items to keep ourselves occupied,  
work that can be done indoors, more books to read and a puzzle or six.
We will drive back a vehicle we left there in storage, to have a second car…just in case.

I’m not sure how I feel about any of this, it may be a real  
bummer being back there again and quickly leaving it…again.

This year, man…bane or boon?
TBD.

* * *

Now, back from Denver we return to the chores of winterizing and getting ready for it all.
Part of those chores is the raking of the leaves, and more leaves and still more leaves.
It’s honest work, enjoyable in a fashion and gives me time to  
think about stuff and nonsense, notably my age and the aches  
and pains that no longer go away with a nights sleep.

Normally I don’t listen to music when I’m outside but the last
few days I’ve put on the headphones and got lost in my choice
of music.
I recently acquired the sound tracks for Record of Lodoss War,
physical media of course, 3 CDs, of which I quickly ripped down
to mp3 so I could listen to on my phone.
I know there’s something impractical about that whole process
but for the life of me I can’t figure out what.

RoLW was one of the first, if not the first ‘Japanimation’ I watched and it really left a mark on me. It’s still one of my favorites.
A fine soundtrack that pairs nicely with fall yard work.
Of particular note,’Parn’s Theme ~ Warm Friendship’ from
Volume 1.
I love the scene where Parn and Etoh are reunited in the 2nd episode and this piece is played.
If you don’t know it, maybe…you…should…watch it?

* * *

The following day I began a second round of leafing and queued
up another fall favorite of mine, Korpiklaani’s ‘Korven Kuningas’.

I’m not sure what those boys are singing about but I sing  
along as best I can, making up invented ‘Finnish sounding’ words as I go along.
That got me thinking about a time I listened to this album
and made up my own titles for all the songs.
Whatever spoke to me from the music or whatever I felt got  
jotted down as it’s new title.
Honestly I didn’t know, still don’t, the actual title names as most of them are in Finnish.

Below are the actual titles vs. mine.Number 3, ‘Keep on Galloping’ I titled ‘Kyraath’ which is my friend’s gaming name. I’ve always associate that song with  
him…blasting it as we drove into the CO Ren Fest parking lotmay be the reason.
The rest are fairly straight forward with the exception of one more made up word ‘Myupching’. Not clear on that one but, there ya go.

Surprisingly, I was damn close with what I called ‘Northern  
Hearth’.

I’m really not the type of person who knows every song title or band members name anyways, even with bands I listen to a lot.
Hell, I’d be hard pressed to name song titles from The Sword with any accuracy…and those are in English for fuck’s sake…and I LOVE The Sword’s work!

Anyway, I dig Korpiklaani and Korven may be my favorite by them.

* * *

The RoLW soundtracks and Korpiklaani have been good company and no doubt over the course of the next few weeks there  
will be others I listen to and may make note of.
Eventually I’ll get a majority of the leaves raked up,  
call it quits and get ready for the next thing to be moved off 
the ground.
Which reminds me, I need to get the snow blower tuned up but  
quick.

What shall I be listening to when the snow falls?

Does that question really need to be asked?

In part, a text with a friend last week:

E: ‘I don’t know WTF is going on with me…I just watched an episode of Star Trek TNG and was completely losing my mind.
I was getting emotional and was like WTF is going on?!‘

Me: ‘Which episode?‘

E: ‘Season 3, Episode 15 ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’‘

* * *

You may remember this episode or you may want to revisit it, but if not and in brief:

The starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) encounters a rift in spacetime while on a routine mission. As they monitor the anomaly, the heavily damaged USS Enterprise-C, a ship believed to have been destroyed more than two decades earlier, emerges. Instantly, the Enterprise-D undergoes a sudden and radical change from its current timeline: it is now a warship, and the United Federation of Planets is at war with the Klingons.
None of the crew notice the change, but Guinan senses that reality has shifted, and has a meeting with Captain Picard to discuss her concerns.
She suggests that the Enterprise-C does not belong in their time and must return to the past. Picard, who knows that this would be a suicide mission, refuses to give such an order based on Guinan’s intuition alone.

Though my friend didn’t say what exactly triggered his emotional response in the episode, after I re-watched it I think I knew.
I believe it had to do with decision making and/or making a tough decision based on a gut feeling.
Trusting in intuition more so than logic.
There is a leap of faith aspect to it all and it’s a problem I’ve been struggling with for months now and one I cannot seem to come to grips with.

After leaving Colorado in a mad rush and arriving here in Minnesota, my girlfriend and I have spent the summer in a sort of limbo. Though it has been a much needed rest we really have not been able to fully relax or enjoy this place as much as we could or should have, especially me.
The lingering problem of where to go next, how exactly to do it and what lies in our future have plagued our thoughts and dreams the entire time and, unfortunately, we are not much closer to a solution then when we first arrived.
We have talked and argued about this to exhaustion and we still do not know.

Mostly it’s me however, I just cannot come to terms with any one solution.
One day I think I know and the next I say the exact opposite thing.
I have analyzed the problem to the point of paralysis.
And worse than that, I have lost faith that it will work at all.

My girlfriend however is more so of the mindset of, what we lightheartedly but respectfully refer to as ‘meta’, and trusts in her gut a lot more than I do.
A sixth sense approach to things and one I believe in, in theory, but eventually drift away from by returning to cold hard logic and analysis.
Which hasn’t been the best choice.

* * *

Back to Yesterday’s Enterprise.

The episode seems relevant to me and our situation because of the scene/s with Guinan and Picard and a decision he must make.
Guinan confronts Picard on the bridge and the ready room where she voices her concerns about things not being right.
They have the following discussion between them:

PICARD: I need more.
GUINAN: There is no more. I wish there were. I wish I could prove it. But I can’t.
PICARD: Then I can’t ask them to go back.
GUINAN: You’ve got to.
PICARD: Guinan, they will die moments after they return. How can I ask them to sacrifice themselves based solely on your intuition?
GUINAN: I don’t know. But I do know that this is a mistake. Every fibre in my being says this is a mistake. I can’t explain it to myself so I can’t explain it to you. I only know that I’m right.
PICARD: Who is to say that this history is any less proper than the other?
GUINAN: I suppose I am.
PICARD: Not good enough, damn it! Not good enough! I will not ask them to die.
GUINAN: Forty billion people have already died. This war’s not supposed to be happening. You’ve got to send those people back to correct this.
PICARD: And what is to guarantee that if they go back they will succeed? Every instinct tells me this is wrong, it is dangerous, it is futile.
GUINAN: We’ve known each other a long time. You have never known me to impose myself on anyone or take a stance based on trivial or whimsical perceptions. This time line must not be allowed to continue. Now, I’ve told you what you must do. You have only your trust in me to help you decide to do it.

Later, Picard briefs his senior officers of the situation and hears more ‘practical’ thoughts.
Though really, his mind is already made up.

CRUSHER: Captain, are you suggesting that we let them return and attempt to complete their mission?
PICARD: I am, Doctor.
CRUSHER: Based on Guinan’s intuition?
RIKER: That won’t accomplish anything, sir. There’s no way they can save Narendra Three.
TASHA: Captain Garrett says there were four Romulan warbirds. The Enterprise-C would be out-manned and outgunned.
LAFORGE: Unless we were to re-arm them with modern
PICARD: We can’t do that. If we send that ship back with new technology we will be altering the past.
RIKER: But that’s what you’re talking about anyway, isn’t it? Altering the past.
PICARD: We’re talking about restoring the past.
LAFORGE: How could Guinan know that history has been altered if she’s been altered along with the rest of us?
DATA: Perhaps her species has a perception that goes beyond linear time.
PICARD: There are many things about her species we can’t easily explained. Yet it is very possible she is correct. A ship from the past has traveled through time. How can we know what effect those events will have on the present. Indeed, we shall never know for certain, if Guinan is correct. But I have decided the consequences of that possibility are too grave to ignore. Dismissed.
RIKER: Sir, if you’d like my opinion
PICARD: I think I’m aware of your opinion, Commander. This is a briefing. I’m not seeking your consent.
RIKER: With all due respect, sir, you’d be asking one hundred and twenty five people to die a meaningless death.
DATA: Not necessarily meaningless, Commander. The Klingons regard honor above all else. If the crew of the Enterprise-C had died fighting for the survival of a Klingon outpost, it would be considered a meaningful act of honor by the Klingon Empire.
PICARD: Even their deaths might have prevented this war. If the Enterprise-C returns to the battle and its mission is a success, history will be irrevocably changed. This time line will cease to exist and a new future will have been created. I’ve considered the alternatives. I’ll go with Guinan’s recommendation. Dismissed.

* * *

Dismissed indeed!

It’s within those two scenes that I find myself, attempting to make a tough decision. Taking in the external information from two different sources, intuition and fact. I feel like Picard in this episode in that regard. But I suppose NOT making a decision could be considered as making a decision…a very weak ass decision.
Anyway, I’m not a Star Fleet captain, my girlfriend isn’t Guinan and this isn’t the 24th century. We’re just regular people living in this time.

Unfortunately watching this episode didn’t bring me any closer to solving our problems.
I was trying to find some sort of answer in it and it felt like there was going to be something more, something deeper to the ideas they were working on but, in the end the writers gave Picard an easy out.
Picard had secret knowledge the whole time that, unknown to the viewer, he would convey later to Captain Garrett, Captian of the 1701-C.
PICARD: ‘The war is going very badly for the Federation, far worse than is generally known. Starfleet Command believes defeat is inevitable. Within six months we may have no choice but to surrender.’

I felt a bit cheated by this, not unlike Lt. Saavic in The Wrath of Khan.
After having been bested by the Kobayashi Maru, she confronts Kirk, the only person to beat the no-win scenario, as to how he did it and learns he ‘cheated’. The real insult is that he justifies it by saying that he doesn’t believe in a no-win scenario…oh brooother.

Naturally young Kirk receives a commendation for his ‘original thinking’…uh huh.

So, was sending the 1701-C back to their doom really a tough call?
Meh…maybe.
What did Picard really have to lose by making it?

Does any of this really matter?

I suppose not.

* * *

Onward…

A few sayings come to mind.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy
Having a plan IS a good thing but more likely than not, once it meets resistance you will need to change it. Keep in mind that ‘the enemy’ or whatever obstacle you face along the way, also has a plan and you probably weren’t consulted about it.

Man plans, God laughs
There is a very good chance that you are doing precisely what you are supposed to be doing, precisely how it was meant to be and no matter how much you plan you will never change the fact that you, are not in control of things.
It is, what it is.

The future’s uncertain and the end is always near
Nuff’ said.

Winter is Coming
Very true!
As I write this it’s the end of September here in the northern Minnesota…Winter IS Coming!

Ultimately the answers I seek lie within myself, guidance from wisdom and faith from living in the present…not from tv or movies.

Successes or failures, planned for or not, will be dealt with if and when they arise and not before.

I have been humbled in this new normal.

* * *

Now back to the end of that text that started this:

Me: If only I could fly into an anomaly right now and be destroyed by Romulans…how lovely.

E: Captain, permission to come aboard.

Me: Granted…Roll credits.

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A successful scouting trip left us with much to ponder.

Good vibes from an unexpected place.

The road is long my friend.

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My first Ren Fest was Minnesota…1982!
I was, enthralled.

Second trip,1986.
I bought a royal blue or cobalt blue goblet that
year.
At some point in my life, in a mad fit of purging I got rid of it.
I regret that now.

Since 2008 and every year after, minus 2020 (canceled due to Covid concerns) my friend  and I have been attending the CO Ren Fest.
Nothing much really changes but we go 
regardless, just to take it all in.
We never tire of it.

Now, back in MN where my fascination with the fest  
began I managed to score from a local thrift/antique 
place this 1987 MN Ren Fest mug!

Though not an 86′ and certainly not blue it’s still a great artifact from a different era.
Huzzah!

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