Perfection is the enemy of good. That’s how the saying goes, isn’t it? I’d take the time to look it up but that’s kind of antithetical to what I’m writing about today. As is typical for me by now, when the year rolled over I glanced at my neglected network of blogs and committed to do better by them in the coming year. I even created a Trello board called “editorial calendar” that has three lists of topics, and I promised myself I’d write three posts a week.

That was three weeks ago. As you can see, no blog posts as of yet.

I almost opened up my editorial calendar to see what I should have written about in this blog on Monday three weeks ago, but I decided not to. I just wanted to get some words down. Get things moving. Get some momentum.

That would certainly be a nice change after 2020.

Don’t get me wrong. In a lot of ways, if I’m being honest, 2020 was pretty good to me personally. I lost more weight. My wife and I committed to making some serious inroads into our financial future and we have done so. I kept up my walking routine and completed a good number of virtual distance challenges. I’ve remained alcohol-free. I listened to a lot of books and podcasts. My team and I have received many accolades and are held up as being highly influential employees in the organization. I’ve continued to go to therapy every two weeks, and I’ve really learned a lot about myself as a result.

But, of course, 2020 was 2020. Pandemic. 45. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria. We’re coming up on a year since the lockdowns began, and all the related factors are of course impacting all of us, and I’m not immune to that. The virus has mutated and that version is making the rounds, so it looks like another extended period of extreme lockdown.

I’m also writing this 10 days before the second anniversary of Christopher’s death, and almost a week after what should have been his 20th birthday. We continue to do our best to heal, to be there for each other, to figure out what life is supposed to even look like now in what we refer to as the “after.” It’s been hard. It will continue to be hard. Most of the people around us probably don’t even think about his suicide when they think about us, and that’s completely normal, but it’s still very much a part of who we are now. Part of who we will always be.

I don’t mean to be maudlin here, and I don’t feel like what I wrote above doesn’t even qualify for that if I’m being honest. It’s not a sad fact. It’s just a fact. It is, as my step-son says, what it is.

So there is a post. I hope there are more to follow. That I keep up the momentum. At this point I have to agree with my Mother, who loves to say that as long as she keeps moving she keeps living. She’s living proof that is true, so all I can do is hope to emulate her.

I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that I had selected a “silly” topic for my final project in the Advanced Technical Writing class I am taking at the University of Maryland University College. Several of you said that you’d like to read it, so here in all of its glory is “How To Survive A Raptor Apocalypse”.

P.S. At the end of the post I’ve uploaded a video of the PowerPoint presentation I made to accompany the paper.

Big thanks to my buddy Ned for giving it the once-over with this Technical Writing mojo!

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INTRODUCTION

In 1993, Steven Spielberg amazed the world with his blockbuster film Jurassic Park. The movie, based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, was a cautionary tale about the potentially horrible consequences that could result from attempting to clone dinosaurs in the modern world. While many audiences were thrilled by the movie, they all went home from the theater that night safe in the knowledge that it was entirely fictional, and that nobody could actually clone dinosaurs.

They were wrong.

A team of Russian and Japanese scientists has announced plans to clone a wooly mammoth sometime in 2012. By combining the DNA of an elephant with marrow cells from a thigh bone of a deceased mammoth, the researchers believe they can re-create an animal that has not walked the planet in more than 10,000 years (Poeter).  When Jurassic Park was released back in 1993 it was impossible to imagine that science would ever be able to actually re-create the fictional experiments that were portrayed in that film, but not even 20 years has passed since then and mankind is playing with fire by reaching back thousands of years to defy the laws of Natural Selection and raise a species from the dead. If these scientists are successful, it’s only a matter of time before they reach even further back in time to satisfy their mad desires to see dinosaurs walking the Earth again.

When they do, it will be a sad day for us all.

If you wish to survive the inevitable dinosaur apocalypse, the time to prepare is NOW. If you wait until the creatures have broken free from their mad creators it will be too late. This guide will help you prepare yourself and your home for the horrible day when science trumps logic and we are thrust head first into a war with a vicious and deadly foe.

Raptors.

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Shortly after I graduated from high school my friends DeWayne Bowen, Jeff Morgan and I decided that we were going to go to work for the Walt Disney World Resort. Jeff was already working there part-time as a character actor, and he told DeWayne and I that we could come and stay with him in Lakeland and his grandparents place. He was house sitting for them over the summer and we figured we could spend a few months working and raising money before they came back to town. I was leaving for Alabama in the Fall anyway, so for me it was the perfect idea for a summer job.

I didn’t actually HAVE a job at the resort when I moved my stuff over to Lakeland. I was 17, and I think that at that age you are legally required to perform every action with as little though and planning as possible. The bottom line was that I wanted to get a job at Disney World, so obviously it was going to happen.

Turns out I was right…Mostly.

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This morning I asked those who follow me on Facebook and Twitter not to be dicks when it came to the election results from last night.  I feel that, in some ways, I am violating that request by making this post.  I honestly can’t help myself, though.  Reading some of this I can’t tell if I should laugh or cry.

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