Para-Geekery

As I was trying to decide what to write about I realized that we’ve not covered anything actually geekish, well this week that ends!

The list of geeky things that interests me is vast and quite varied, but the one that has captivated me for the longest is by far the paranormal.  From a very early age I can remember experiencing things that I just could not explain.  Sometimes these events would frighten me, but most of them just made me curious about what was causing them.

As I grew older that curiosity only increased.  My two younger brothers and I share many things –the paranormal included- but the rest of our family has thought us to be all but crazy and have given us a great deal of strife over our beliefs no matter how solid our evidence might be.

Despite that though we stuck together –and to our guns- and over the years we’ve been blessed to find others who share our interests.  Luckily groups like The Atlantic Paranormal Society (From Ghost Hunters) and others have emerged, making those of us who are more than just interested in the paranormal seem less strange.

These days one can almost always find a show on television claiming to feature true accounts of ghosts and their interaction with the living.  The trick is being able to tell which ones are based in factual evidence from those that are closer to works of fiction.  However, the more you educate yourself about the equipment used by investigators and the results they produce the easier it will be for you to tell the good shows from the bad ones.

Keep in mind that as with most other things in life if it sounds too good –or scary- to be true, it probably is.  If you have any stories or questions about a paranormal experience please post them here and I’ll do my best to help you find an answer.  Also, I would like to send a sincere thank you to the people at T.A.P.S, G.H.I and G.A.C for making it more acceptable to talk about ghosts and for all us the information they have provided over the years.

For love of the game

In this fast paced, high tech world one is never far from a recap or article about their favorite teams latest game, and while having a wealth of information at our fingertips is great it also has its downsides.  In very few places is this more evident than in sports.

As an avid sports fan I follow multiple teams, some to a higher degree than others but to only one of them am I truly devoted.  Even in my early teens I would sit mere inches from the television, refusing to go to bed until all nine innings had been completed.  While our family moved from state to state, my heart has always belonged to the Atlanta Braves.

To this day -some ten years since first discovering baseball- my pulse still quickens each hour we grow nearer to opening day.  I wait with baited breath for the season’s first pitch and then its first home run and so on and so on.  Through the sweltering southern summer months my life consists of tomahawk chopping and roster rotations. 

Perfectly good days can be ruined by a tough loss and bad days can be reversed just as easily.  In years past being a Braves fan was easy (before that you practically had to be a masochist), and while we’ve gone through a rough patch these last few seasons every March the slate get cleaned.  Yes, the game has changed and so has the way we follow it but my love for it still remains.

There are a lot of people who get paid to tell the fans what is happening in the world of professional sports and of late it seems as though picking on those of us in or near Atlanta is in vogue.  Admittedly I spend very little time reading articles not released by the clubs themselves, however I have still managed to come across several that paint Georgians as fans not deserving of the teams we have because of declining attendance (even though we rank near the middle of the pack when you look at the actual statistics). 

Now, it would be easy to blame the increase in empty seats in our arenas on the economy or the lack of recent championships from any of our teams but I think there are many other factors to consider.  As what could easily be defined as a die hard fan I am willing to admit that there are times when the decisions made by some Atlanta organizations make me want to pull my hair out or just leave me plain confused. 

Although I will always remain loyal to my Braves, for some of the more casual fans being told by so called experts that your team has little to no hope of winning can turn you off for the entire season.  Responsibility however cannot be solely be placed on the shoulders of analysts and broadcasters who spread these disheartening opinions throughout the preseason and beyond.  

If fans and professionals a like would stop pretending or expecting to know what the future holds perhaps we could return to the days where writers talked about what actually happened during the game, in the locker rooms or the front office; and in return fans might once again pack into stadiums hoping to witness the amazing plays that their less fortunate friends and families will only get to read about or watch on television.

In short, times are hard and we all need something to believe in, something to bring us all together again.  I feel that something can once again be sports as it has been so many times in the past.  We all know that booing the other team is a big part of the fun of being at the game, but tearing down their fans shouldn’t be.

Sports mean something different to all of us, and that fact is no less true in the south than it is in NYC.  We love our professional teams here as much as the next city, but college football also holds a special place in our everyday lives and if you’ve never been south of the Mason-Dixon line on a Saturday in the fall you’ll never really understand   So, let’s agree to stop pointing fingers and start trying to fix the problems (if any actually do exist that is).  Oh and of course let’s not forget…  GO BRAVES!!!

People are like crayons...

A while back I sat at my Aunt Lindas dining room table coloring with her three year old son Landen.  Despite his insistent demands to use his sister Savannahs markers I brought him a tattered and torn yellow box half filled with crayons and his favorite Micky Mouse coloring book.  We flipped through the pages until he found a picture he liked (Donald Duck playing baseball in case you're curious), and then set to creating our masterpiece.

After watching him purposely pick out the smallest crayons and then get frustrated when they slipped through his little fingers I was admittedly slightly curious about his reasoning.  So, I asked him why he didn't want to use the nicer, obviously unused ones like Spring Green or Sepia.
"Because Cheryl," he stated seriously, "Those are the ugly ones and they will make the picture all yucky!"
While the color palette of a toddler is far from extensive it's still hard to argue with his simple logic.

When it comes to crayons the wrapper matches what's on the inside so you always know what you're about to get, unfortunately people are never quite that simple.  Far too often in life we envy those who  appear to be Blues or Reds on the outside only to discover that where it matters they are actually closer to Grays.  On the same hand it's easier to dismiss those with far less attractive exteriors than it is to peel back their layers (like an onion! as Shrek would say) and see what's underneath.  After all, Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian make for a much nicer picture than Mother Teresa and Ghandi.

Life is hard on most of us and sometimes it feels like the more you try to put into the world the more it takes from you.  There will always be days when the universe feels like a toddler playing with crayons, using up those of us with the most to give leaving us broken and less than we were because it sometimes forgets to be gentle with those it likes the best. 

So, instead of feeling sorry for yourself the next time you pass a supermodel remember that people are seldom what they appear to be and that it takes every color under the rainbow to make the most stunning masterpieces no matter how much paint -or wax- you have to spill in the process!