The Traks of Life

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog entry. When I stopped, I had grad plans of writing everyday and being really productive. Things went great at first. But then, as always seems to happen, real life stepped in and stopped me cold.

For several years now, my wife has been dealing with a number of health issues. We’ve taken them on, one at a time, and dealt with them as best we could, but these problems haven’t really left me in the mood to write comedy. Actually, they haven’t left me in the mood to write at all. By the time I’ve worked all day and then gone home to try to take care of things there, I’m wiped. All I want to do when I get a free minute is vegetate. My wife tries to help out, but, unfortunately, there are a number of things that she used to do around the house that she just physically can’t anymore, which I know is incredibly annoying to her. Like John Locke, she doesn’t like to be told what she can’t do. All of this has been very rough on her physically and emotionally. It hasn’t been easy for me either. It hurts to see her in pain and not feeling well, and just trying to work full time and keep up with the house and the kids has me drained. I don’t know how single parents do it.

Despite all of this, I still have Traks stories in my head that I want to write. It may be a while until that happens, though.

I’ve been posting less than usual (not that I was ever anything close to regular with these blog posts), but I do have a reason for it, which is that I’ve been doing other writing instead. Since making my promise to engage in some kind of creative activity everyday, I’ve finished two stories and am very close to finishing a third. Unfortunately, that means that the blog has been neglected, but there are only so many hours in a day, I’m afraid.

That said, I do need to get back to the Traks history posts at some point. The whole idea of this blog was for me to write that stuff down before it completely vanishes from my memory. I still want to do that, but the writing of new stories has got to take priority for the moment.

I intended to post another update on my writing progress, but I got so busy writing that I didn’t get around to doing it. I’d say that’s a good thing. Since making my pledge a couple of weeks ago to do a bit of creative work every day, I have finished the story I was working on (and had been working on since last March), written another, and am now several pages into a third. I’m not positive, but I may have already written more than I did in all of 2010. I’m feeling pretty good about the work I’m doing and will hopefully have something to announce a little later in the year.

Last Friday I made a declaration that I would spend some time each day for the rest of the year working on something creative. It’s been five days now, and I’ve been able to keep to my pledge. Of course, if I’d already failed after only five days, that would have been really REALLY pathetic.

So what I have I been doing? I have made a little bit of progress on the story I’m currently writing. And I stress the “little bit” part. Most of my efforts have been leaning toward a new series idea I’ve been kicking around for the last couple of years. Finally I had a couple of breakthroughs that have me interested and excited about it again. There’s still a lot of development work yet to be done, but I’m very happy with the way things are going so far.

Ten years ago I had one of my best years of writing Traks ever. I wrote 24 stories and part of the Boldly Gone book in a single year. Last year, I completed one story.

One.

To say I’ve had a drop-off is a bit of an understatement. I look at those numbers and wonder what the hell has happened. I really can’t chalk it up to any one thing. Yes, my life is busier now. Back in 2001, I had one child, who was just a baby. I was just starting out in my job and didn’t have a whole lot of responsibility yet. We were also renting a tiny place when 2001 started. In the middle of that year we moved into a townhouse, but even that wasn’t didn’t require a huge amount of work.

Now I have two children, a house to deal with, and more responsibilities at work. I used to spend my lunch breaks writing in my cubicle, but now most of the time I want to get out of the building for a bit. Or, if I don’t leave, I spent my lunch online resting my brain.

All of that’s true. But the I think the main problem is the ideas just aren’t pounding to get out like they used to. I have ideas. Plenty of them. They’re mostly swirling around in a disjointed mess, though, and I haven’t had many of the “ah ha!” moments where the ideas coalesce into a coherent story of late.

I miss writing. I really do. But now when I do get some time to myself, I’m usually too tired to really do anything productive with it. Instead of being creative, I stare at the screen and web surf. Oh. Wait. So maybe it’s the Internet’s fault. There we go. I can blame the net for my own lack of ummph.

Nah. It’s me.

And I need to do something about it. I firmly believe that creativity is a muscle just like any other in the body. It needs to be exercised to grow stronger. Creativity leads to creativity. A couple of months ago, I read “Julie & Julia.” The author, Julie Powell, while not in my situation, was feeling like she needed to do something to make a change in her life. She decided to cook her way through Julia Child’s cookbook on French cuisine (Sorry. I don’t remember the exact name of the book.). Now she ended up with a far larger change than she was expecting, which really isn’t the point here. My point is that she get herself a goal to shake things up a bit, and she accomplished it.

I am not going to cook my way through a cookbook (Although, that sounds fun). I am, however, resolving right here and now to do a bit of writing everyday for the remainder of this year. It may be work on a Traks story. It may be a post on this blog. It may just be a random bit of conversation or a scene that’s stuck in my head. But I am going to write something.

And this blog post doesn’t count for today. I’m going back to the story I started last August. Time to get that thing moving again.

Remember “The X-Files”? It was a great show (at least for the first 5-7 seasons. YMMV). The show produced a couple of catch phrases over it’s run. One of them, “Trust No One,” has cropped up in several places since. I seem to recall seeing it on a license plate. On the show, the phrase was basically about not trusting anyone in authority since they could be in on the conspiracy.

I’ve come to the somewhat sobering conclusion, though, that it applies to our real lives and to everyone on the planet, including yourself. Now before anyone starts worrying, I’m not about to jump into some kind of weird rant or conspiracy theory here. Nope. This is just about the basics of humanity.

Do you have secrets that you don’t want anyone else to know? Or maybe some things that you’ve only confided to a close friend? Are those secrets are safe? I would say no.

Let’s go with a secret that you’ve told a close friend. As soon as you did that, you immediately lost control of the information. Your friend may tell someone else because they didn’t realize that it was a big secret, or maybe they do know it’s a secret but think they can trust the person they told it to. Maybe they’re lips are loosened by alcohol or medication. My kids are big iCarly fans, and there was an episode last year where one character divulged her big secret while under the effects of dental anesthesia. Ha ha. It’s a sitcom plot. That sort of thing never happens in real life, right? Er…sorry. It does. I’ve seen it happen. Even people who would never dream of betraying your confidence under normal circumstances might if altered by illness or medication.

Unfortunately, the same applies to you. Maybe you’re the big-mouthed drunk. Or maybe a medication you’re given at some point makes you more confessional than you would be otherwise. It can happen.

So what’s my point? Basically it’s that any secret you have, no matter how deeply you bury it, can be discovered. That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion it’s better to live a life without secrets whenever possible. Now I’m not advocating the end of privacy by saying that. I still don’t need Facebook nosing into my affairs and publishing everything about me to the planet.

Really, though, you can trust no one all you want, but, in the end, the truth is out there.

I love Las Vegas.

I really can’t put my finger on why, though. I’m not much of a gambler…or a drinker…or a partier…or a dancer. I don’t understand the draw of Cirque du Soleil, which seems to have a show in every major hotel on the Strip. The people on the Strip that try to hand you cards advertising “escorts” or pushing nightclub passes annoy me. I don’t have the disposable income to see a lot of shows. The casinos are smoky and loud.

Yet when I go there, which I just did last week, I have a wonderful time just being on the Strip. I’m an East Coast native, so the time difference always hits me. I usually end up awake at the crack of dawn, which I’ve found is a fantastic time to take walks. The Strip is quiet and you can wander from hotel to hotel without dealing with crowds or the gauntlet of escort card distributors. The casinos are open, of course, and there always seems to be a contingent of elderly folks stationed at the slot machines at that early hour.

And at night, even with the crowds, the lights of the Strip hotels are beautiful. An evening stroll (or hike really, considering the distances involved) will take you past the glowing Eiffel Tower at Paris, illuminated jets of water dancing in time to music at the Bellagio, and bursts of fire from the Mirage volcano. I don’t have to spend a dime to enjoy myself, and I certainly get my exercise in with all the walking.

All right. Just so this post has a point, here are my Las Vegas travel tips gathered over my admittedly few visits to the city:

1) Good walking shoes are a necessity. Seriously. NOT OPTIONAL. I don’t care how good those heels look with your outfit ladies (or some gentlement), DO NOT WEAR THEM if you plan to walk anywhere. YOU…WILL…SUFFER!

2) Look at your hotel’s location before you book it. Yes, Mandelay Bay is on the Strip, but it’s at the very south end, and you have a looooong walk to get anywhere…even to the monorail, which ends in back of the MGM Grand.

3) Decide what you want to spend your money on. If you plan on being out on the Strip all the time, why spend a fortune on your hotel room? You can get a perfectly clean and functional room in the center of the Strip at the Imperial Palace for far less than you’d pay at Caesar’s Palace, which is right across the street. Spending $25 a night on a room at Imperial Palace (which is what rooms were going for this Fall) instead of over $100 a night at Caesar’s gives you a lot of extra fun money. If you have the bucks to swing on the fancy room, by all means, go for it. You don’t have to, though.

4) Unless you’re seeing a brand new show or a major headline act, don’t bother buying your tickets in advance before your trip. The Strip has several discount ticket stands selling seats for that night’s shows at very reduced prices. My friends and I got tickets for a show for 50% off from the machine in the Fashion Show Mall.

5) The Strip is NOT for children. I always wonder what parents are thinking when I see them walking with kids along the Strip. Now I have to admit that I’m a bit of a hypocrite here, since I took my kids to Vegas last Fall. I’ll get to that in a second. First, though, I say again, THE STRIP IS NOT FOR KIDS! It’s like taking them to Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. NO! The Strip is an adult playground. Yes, Vegas flirted with being family friendly in the 90s, but it didn’t take. There is almost nothing left for children there. Even the FAO Schwartz that was in the Forum Shops at Caesar’s is now gone.

So why did I take my kids? Well, honestly it was just to show them what little they could see. And my wife and I did it in less than a day. We were in Arizona visiting family and then drove a rental car up to the Grand Canyon, where we spent the night. The next day after leaving the canyon, we drove the 6 hours to Vegas, going over Hoover Dam and arriving around 5PM. I had booked a room at the Excalibur, which is at the south end of the Strip and fairly family-friendly. They have an arcade and game room in the lower level and a food court with places that my kids have heard of. After eating in said foot court, we walked over to MGM Grand, saw the lions, and then took the monorail up to Paris. We exited Paris just in time to catch the Bellagio fountains and then went through Caesar’s Palace to the Forum Shops, where we took the kids to FAO Schwartz (which, as I said, is no longer there). We left the shops just in time to see the Mirage volcano. By this time, it was 9PM, and we decided to head into the Venetian to show them the indoor canals and for some dessert at the Haagen-Dazs. My daughter got about five bites of her strawberry ice cream in and then put her head down on the table. She was dead asleep in seconds (So you could say she Haagen-Dozed. Wocka wocka! Thank you, folks. I’m here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.). We went back to the hotel after this and got up again early the next morning, so we’d have time to show the kids the Luxor and the M&M store before we returned to car and went to the airport. In total, my kids were in Vegas for about 18 hours. They remember the lights, the neat hotels, the volcano, and that’s about it.

If you want to show your kids Vegas without having to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions, that’s one way to do it.

6) Get up to Freemont Street. It’s the classic Vegas area you’ve seen in old movies and such with casinos like the Golden Nugget that have been there for decades. The entire street has been covered by a massive LED screen canopy, and it’s really just a neat place to see. The local bus, the Deuce, that runs up and down the Strip will get you there cheaply, or you can take a cab if you have more money to spend and/or would rather avoid public transportation.

7) Three nights is enough. Unless you’re there for an event, such as a wedding or conference, that limits your free time, three days is probably all the time you’ll want to spend in Las Vegas. Yes, there’s plenty to do, but a lot of it is pricey and just walking gets old (and painful) after a couple of days. If you’re on vacation, I think you’ll find three nights is all that you’ll need to have a good time and not get sick of the place.

That’s my view anyway. Your mileage may vary.