Play Ball!

This weekend is when we all spring forward for daylight savings. This time of the year evokes pretty strong emotions for me. I am already excited for the upcoming season of Major League Baseball. I have been a Seattle Mariners fan for as long as I can remember and they look promising this year in the Cactus League games. 

More directly, though, I am whisked back to my own (albeit much too short) baseball career. Up until daylight savings it gets dark before most people get out of school and work and in Little League baseball we didn’t get the pleasure of practicing under the lights. This meant no regular practice until the sun stays up a little longer. So, for me as a young kid daylight savings time meant getting back out on the diamond for one more year. I was never a great player, sometimes a good player, but I have always loved baseball in a way I can’t explain. Playing on my Little League teams and helping my dad with my brother’s teams are definitely a spring time activity I miss dearly. While I am getting a little nostaligic here, this time of year is about hope and the promise of a better time to come.  

Play Ball!

Let's Write a Short Story!

This next month, March, I am going to be writing a short story. I have begun reading Joe Bunting's Let's Write a Short Story. This book along with finishing Stephen King's On Writing (discussed here) have really motivated me to start writing fiction. I spend countless hours in college writing hundreds of pages of academic prose. While I enjoyed the process of crafting these papers, I have spent the last ten years getting lost in fiction. If there was one single thing I could list as my favorite way to spend time it is reading fiction novels. I plan to combine my previous enjoyment of the writing process with my long time love of fiction. I plan to begin by writing a short story by the end of March. I will be posting the story on this blog as soon as it is finished.

On Writing

I have never really been a big Stephen King fan, but decided to pick up his non-fiction book On Writing based on a trusted recommendation. I quickly came to two conclusions: Stephen King can really write and I actually do like his stories.

I am not a big fan of the horror story for which King has become so popular, but there are quite a few of his books and short stories that have been made into movies that have become some of my favorite movies. The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and Dolores Claiborne just to name a few. The Green Mile specifically changed the course of my studies in college. I had just seen started my studies in political science when seeing the movie for the first time in the theater. The Green Mile had such a profound affect on me that I focused my undergraduate studies on the death penalty. Organizing a panel, writing many papers and organizing a school event brining in a well known speaker on the topic of the death penalty. 

I also really enjoyed his recounting his own story of becoming a writer and some insight into his process. It was a quick read and well worth it if you are at all interested in Stephen King or the writing process. I will write in my next post about where I am going from here with my own writing process.

Impossible no more

This last week idea of creating an IOS (iPhone or iPad) app went from being impossible to very difficult. This me seem like a subtle difference but is actually a monumental shift. As I go through the process of trying to create this app I have an idea for I keep running into roadblocks of knowledge I just do not have yet. I can see there is so much more to learn, but now I can also see what the specifics this entails. I would liken it to a brand new carpenter knowing he needs to get better with a hammer when last week he did not even know what a hammer looked like. I am now ready to embark on this journey and could not be more excited.

Treehouse

When looking to embark on my journey to become a world class IOS developer I knew I needed a guid. I have looked at many books, and chosen a few good ones (The Big Nerd Ranch). I have also looked at some more in depth bootcamps and may in fact attend one in the near future. My plan for now however is to use the excellent video training from Treehouse. They have come highly recommended and I have been pleased with what I have watched so far. I was excited to learn that although they are based in Florida, the CEO Ryan Carson, lives right here in Portland. I am planning on attending future Treehouse Meetups an hope to get a chance to meet him in person. This has been a great tool so far and encourage others to try it out as well.