Dub’s Rules For Life
Every so often, something I see, read or experience prompts me to apply a lesson I’ve learned from it to my personal life.
From each of these, I tend to create a short, simple phrase to remember the lesson. I call them, Dub’s Rules for Life (mostly mine, but you can feel free to use them yourself).
Some are humorous, some serious, some are just plain silly, but all are the honest truth (as I see it anyway).
I’ll be posting each one individually, sandwiched between the meatier posts, for your enjoyment and discussion. Each rule has a number, but that number is no reflection on how important the rule is, or how many there are (just fyi).
Looking for a Window
There is an old saying: “When God closes a door, he opens a window”. It gets passed around quite a lot, most often in situations when someone needs encouragement, but the would-be encourager has nothing to say that specifically fits the situation. One of many cliches, that while it may be true (at least in some instances), it has lost its impact in a sea of many other well-worn fragments extracted from the wisdom of other’s experiences.
I spend a generous chunk of my mental energy in reflection, pondering the should-haves or could-have-beens, because “If you do not learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it.” Another cliche, I suppose, but a person who aspires to leave this world better than he came into it, would do well to identify his missteps before running headlong into the future. You know, “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. I really need to stop with the cliches.
I know I’m not the only person who has figuratively stood on the outside of a shut door, carefully pondering the next step. It wouldn’t even be the first time. It’s the uncomfortable moment of uncertainty about what lies ahead that brings me to this moment of reflection. No, this is not near the first time I’ve been in this place, and considering my past experiences has left me wondering if I will ever have a smooth transition to my next destination.
Previous transitions were never easy. I’ve always been dragged kicking and screaming to the outside of the door, left to lament in the dust of what normal used to be. Maybe it has been stubbornness, or an inability to clearly discern when and how to move on that has made this necessary. But each time, I’ve found myself here, in the midst of the unknown, looking for a window.
Truth be told, I’m a little jealous. I can’t even count the number of stories I’ve read lately from people in transition in their lives, and yet they share a common thread that my story does not. They have a clear picture of where they are going, or at least, where they want to go. They have a destination in mind, a plan, some purpose to achieve, and it is that purpose that lead them out of a closing door, and through another.
I can say that in this time I have found a world of encouragement and insight in several sources. I’ve discovered several authors whose authenticity in telling their stories has helped to broaden my perspective on life, both through their books, and their blogs. I’ve also connected with a number of people on twitter who are building a community through their genuine care and concern for others. I’m not terribly outgoing on twitter; I’m naturally introverted in the real world as well. Although I’m not saying much, it feels good to be a part of the conversation that is going on, even if I’m just eavesdropping.
So, I’m not without hope. And this uncertain place I find myself in is not uncharted territory. This place is well worn from the steps of many that have walked this way, all of them looking for a window.
Of What Value Is Sentiment?
via flickr - Jeff Belmonte
I wonder sometimes if we humans attach too much value to objects.
From a recent news story:
A New Zealand man who promised his wife he would find his wedding ring after it fell into the capital’s murky harbor has succeeded — 16 months later.
To him, I’m sure, that little golden circle held a lot of value. To anyone else, it’s just a piece of jewelry. The value is all sentimental – created by emotions and memory.
But aren’t the feelings and the memories the real things of value? With or without the ring, he would still have those, wouldn’t he?
I can almost defend him for going after the ring, but what I cannot defend is those who hoard to themselves mountains of things that are of no real use to them, simply because of sentiment. Houses, garages, sheds and storage units overflow with stuff, because people are too emotionally attached to inanmate objects to bear to get rid of them.
Some of it may be garbage, for sure, but many of those things could go to someone in need, donated to a charitable organization, or sold for cash to give away. But most would rather hang on to the memories and watch the things that they love fade into disrepair and turn into garbage.
What they don’t realize, is that by using what they have to help someone else, they can increase the good memories and positive feelings, by knowing the blessing of giving. And instead of a life cluttered with stuff, they could have a full heart.
Book Review: Faces in the Fire – T.L. Hines
“Faces in the Fire” follows the interactions of the lives of four people and how each influences the other toward their own personal redemption. The narrative is comprised of the stories of four individual characters: the truck driver turned metal sculptor, who hears the voices of ghosts in dead people’s clothing; the email spammer and self-described bottom-feeder facing terminal cancer; the tattoo artist addicted to heroin and running from the pain of her past life; and the assassin, who kills with a simple touch.
Each character’s progress in the story is shifted by a chance meeting with one of the others, and a possession is passed between them. This possession is interpreted differently by each, and becomes the key to changing their lives.
The presentation of the story is unusual, in that, though the chapters are numbered chronologically, they are presented in the book out of order and in four sections, one following each character through the narrative. This out-of-order approach may turn some readers off, although it did not affect my interest in the story.
I found the story interesting from the beginning, although the action was a bit slow to start. The book is driven by supernatural occurrences, which add a definite element of mystery. The characters themselves were interesting, but some of their motivations seemed to be shallow at times, and it was hard to determine exactly what brought each character to their present state. Each character’s conclusion does not really provide a full resolution in the story, but only an indication of the direction of their lives. If it bothers you when authors do not tie up everything at the end, this book will leave you hanging, to a point. If you follow the common thread, at least in my mind, you can determine who the main character is, and how that story comes full circle.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book, this being my first by this author. I plan to try a few others from T.L. Hines.
Stockhome Syndrome: For Dummies
I have done a massive edit to this post, as there are much better sources for the information that I was trying to provide here. I will mainly focus on my experiences with the ‘heist’, and a general perspective on the process.
There is a lot of information going around and a lot of online activity happening with regard to what is now becoming known as the Stockholm Syndrome ‘heist’. The purpose of this post is to bring people up to speed with what has happened so far (I’ll try my best).
The heist had its beginning in an email sent out to those subscribed to Derek Webb’s email list on 5/12. The email was a introduction to some apparent issues that Derek was having with his record label about the upcoming release of his new album “Stockholm Syndrome”.
A second email went out on 5/19, saying that Derek was going offline, and to follow him on a new twitter account: @ssyndrome. The email was full of underscores in odd places. Piecing together the letters after the underscores in the message spelled out a secret phrase “paradiseisaparkinglot”, which, as it turns out is a website address.
Both emails were posted at derekwebb.com., (the emails were the only content left on the website, as of the date of the last email).
Going to paradiseisaparkinglot.com, visitors were faced with a strange instruction. ”Go to Ugly Mugs in Nashville, ask for the Stockholm Latte”. The page also featured a list of 20 items with download buttons that were disabled, and an rss feed. The rss feed is a collection of videos, pictures and documents that appear to be clues or bits of information that still have not been fully interpreted yet.
Visitors to Ugly Mug’s in Nashville were given an ‘artifact’, which turned out to be a usb drive that contained a code to be emailed to a provided address. There were five artifacts deposited in Nashville. Once all five artifacts were retrieved and the codes emailed out, the first download button was activated at paradiseisaparkinglot.com. The downloads appear to be bits of an audio file with odd names; the files are referred to as ‘stems’. The prevailing assumption is that all of the stems must be pieced together in order to create a full audio file.
The contents of each one of the drives were a PDF with a validation code, a small audio wav file (one of the stems) and a picture, the contents of which pointed to the location of the next artifact.
Others also found a small hyperlink at the bottom of DerekWebb.com that lead to a form page asking “wha_t do you _wan_t? (erro_r -0558 103)“. The underscored letters in this spell ‘twtr’. Checking @derekwebb on twitter for 1/3 at 5:58 gives you the correct answer. Answering the question correctly takes you to a large picture of Derek with a black eye and a web-address under his eye, black-eye.me. This leads to yet another submit box with the question “what time it is? (error -0241 120)”. A twitter post from 1/20 at 2:41 gives you the answer to this question. Answering correctly gives you a video. The significance of this video is still in question.
The web was also all a-flutter about what was happening. A fairly scathing article at Relevant Magazine’s website was posted as the excitement began to build, heavily writing it all off as a publicity stunt.
Then there was silence. Until the next day, when someone noticed that one of the words in the emails on derekwebb.com had been turned into a hyperlink (r_eal in the second email) and posted it on twitter. The link lead to yet another form submit page, with a form box preceded by the number 1 and enclosed in quotes. I got into investigative mode and found another hyperlink on the page (trouble in the first email) that lead to the previously mentioned Relevant article. I figured out that entering the words in quotes from the article in the form box, in order, individually, resulted in a download of a zip file. The file contained a pre-mix mp3 of “The Spirit vs The Kickdrum” and a text file, containing only the characters 10-2-4. I blogged more about this here.
The following day, the next set of instructions appeared on paradiseisaparkinglot.com. These instructions set the hunters to Horizon Records in Greenville SC, where they were to ask for the latest release from Bejerot records. The requesters received the next artifacts, usb drives with similar contents as before, and codes that unlocked the next set of stems on paradiseisaparkinglot.com.
The next tweet from @ssyndrome came on 5/21: “New instructions coming 05/26. Two cities next week.” So, apparently the artifact hunters got the Holiday weekend off.
Beginning on Tuesday, May 26, regular instructions were posted that led seekers to cities all over the US, including: Waco, Los Angeles, Decatur(GA), Seattle, Charlotte(NC), Vienna(VA), Raleigh(NC), Lexington(KY), Dallas, Grand Rapids, St Louis(MO), Birmingham(AL) and Nashville (among others I am sure I left out).
Other significant points of interest in the process:
5/29: Another word in the emails on derekwebb.com was been hyperlinked. The word “all” in the first email now points to ssyndrome.info.
Sometime after this, a new link appeared on DerekWebb.com in the first email in the word ‘all’. @ssyndrome sent out a twitter message that referred to having information for ‘all’ at DerekWebb.com. Clicking the link took you to ssyndrome.info. Clicking on the third bar in the barcode picture on the website linked to a movie file. Some twitter follower found morse code in the video and has translated it – the message states “6 p.m – GPS to follow”. Further Update: The 7th stem contains two image files that are named with GPS coordinates: 38.908818, -77.253542
6/11: Three new twitter messages from @ssyndrome:
am i _r_eally trouble_d? are y_ou? _what does that mea_n? te_ll me y_our truth _an_d i’ll tell you mine.
thi_s is s_tupid. who car_es. i’_m leaving. i’m only going to say this _2 times.
You have 12 hours starting now, until Waco time (PM).
The embedded message in the first two twitter posts instructs the seeker to ‘redownload stem2′. Those who downloaded found a pre-mix mp3 of the new song ‘Freddie, Please’. The updated stem was only available for 12 hours.
On 6/26, the following instructions were posted: Go to Workplay in Birmingham, AL, go to front desk and ask for two tickets to see the Worboys. I got the first artifact from this one. Woohoo!
The first person to get an artifact, got one of a different color than the others (me in this case). The first one is white, the others are black.
Being the first to retrieve the artifact netted me a Tier 3 pre-order of ‘Stockholm Syndrome (digital and physical) and two free tickets to any show on the ‘Black-Eye’ Tour.
Aftermath: The seeming culmination of the ‘heist’ was an event in Nashville, where faithful followers gathered for something, but they did not know what it was. When they arrived, they were greeted by Derek and a representative of his record label, who verified that the controversy surrounding the record was indeed real. Derek did a short Q & A and the attendees were shown some clips from the documentary video.
During the event, more twitter messages from @ssyndrome were sent, and those who followed the clues received a chance to be shuttled away after the event to an undisclosed location. The location turned out to be Derek’s house, and the lucky followers were treated to private preview of the album from Derek personally.
On 7/7, ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ became available for pre-order at derekwebb.com. At this point all of the urls used in the heist were re-routed to the pre-order page. To my knowledge, no pre-order sales figures have been released, but during the first few days, the pre-order website could barely keep up with the download requests (all pre-orders got an immediate download of some kind).
I downloaded my pre-order several days later (trying to avoid the traffic). I’ll hopefully be blogging my review at some point.
More Derek Webb/Stockholm Syndrome
This has turned into an all out scavenger hunt, apparently with the prizes being new music from Derek Webb’s not-yet-released album, Stockholm Syndrome.
Some places to follow the developments:
She Must and Shall No Longer Exist
Yesterday, I inadvertently discovered one of the pieces of the puzzle. Checking my twitter search for ssyndrome, @thievingpoet noted that one of the words (r_eal) on the second of the emails posted on DerekWebb.com had been hyperlinked, and leads to a form page.
I immediately jumped over to investigate.
The form page had a single text box preceeded by the number 1 and surrounded by quotes. I knew that there had to be a clue somewhere about what to enter in that form box. I went back to the emails to look for words in quotes. There were none. But, I did discover that one of the words (trouble) was hyperlinked in the first email. This link leads to an article on Relevant Magazine’s website that was somewhat critical of this publicity stunt.
My previous hunch was satisfied when I found that there were in fact several words in quotes in the article (click through to the links to see them). When I entered these words in order on the form page, I received the download of a zip file called tsvtkd.zip. The zip archive contained a premix mp3 of the song “The Spirit vs The Kickdrum” and a rtf file (text) that contained only the characters “10-2-4″.
Of course, as soon as I figured it out, I @ replied @thievingpoet with the news, and posted a comment on the ongoing discussion at We Are the Stories.
I’m happy that I got to make a small contribution to the process, although, I can’t take full credit . I would have never went on my hunt without the original tweet from @thievingpoet.
On to a different discussion of this whole fiasco:
This “publicity stunt”, “alternate reality game” or “heist” as some people are referring to it, seems to be having two effects on the interested parties.
There are those who are not so enthralled with the whole idea of the “heist”. Some are frustrated that it is moving slowly and is somewhat complicated. Some are upset at Derek directly, as they feel that engaging in a publicity stunt undermines his “authenticity” (especially if the “trouble” with the record label turns out to be manufactured to facilitate this process).
Then are those who are taking it at face value and playing along (like myself). This is a very creative way for an artist to reach out to their fans and get them involved (similar things have been done before, so this is nothing new).
To me, this is Derek’s music, and he can do with it whatever he wants, and release and/or promote it however it wants. I find it ridiculous to hear some of the commentary from those following this who are down on the whole idea with some type of self-righteous music purist attitude. No one’s making you play along.
Derek Webb’s Stockholm Syndrome
If you follow Derek Webb either via email or on Twitter, you’ve probably seen the discussions of late regarding Derek’s new album “Stockholm Syndrome”.
It also doesn’t come as a surprise that, according to Derek’s last two email updates, the record label is taking issue to some of the content of the record, specifically, but not limited to, a particular word in one of the song’s lyrics. This, of course, is not new for Derek, as he has seen controversy over lyrics before (the song “Wedding Dress” comes to mind).
The latest development has occurred during the last 24 hours, where derekwebb.com has gone mostly dark, left with the text of his last two email updates as the only content. Derek has also urged his Twitter followers to follow a new account, @ssyndrome, as he has ceased from updated his personal twitter profile for the time being.
The last email update is the most interesting piece of this puzzle so far, as it had some seemingly misplaced underscores strewn throughout the text. Those with a curiosity, like me, would find a pattern in the placement of the underscores, where taking the letters directly after the underscores and putting them together spells out a possibly cryptic message:
“Paradise is a parking lot”. Update: This is a web address, http://paradiseisaparkinglot.com. The site gives visitors instructions to go on hunts for verification codes. The first instruction: “Go to Ugly Mugs in East Nashville, ask for a ‘Stockholm Latte’”. I’m wishing I lived in Nashville right now, because this sounds like a lot of fun.
I will admit, I had not listened to any of the album previews that were previously posted on his website, so I am not sure of the significance of this particular phrase. I’m hoping the scores of Derek Webb fans on the underbelly of the internet could shed some light on this message.
I’m not sure if all of this furor regarding “Stockholm Syndrome” is absolutely genuine, or is a brilliant marketing scheme, but either way, at this point I’m hooked.
Update: The first twitter update from @ssyndrome reads “The first of 5 Nashville Artifacts has been found”. This is getting stranger by the second.
Yet another update: From the commenter below – a link to a full recap of what has transpired so far, as well as some interesting commentary. We’ll see how this all plays out.
Other links following this developing story:
Is there anything the iPhone can’t do?
I just downloaded the wordpress app from the iPhone app store. So now I can blog straight from my phone, anywhere.
Not that I have ever done a whole lot of blogging anyway, but at least the app will serve as a reminder to try to channel my thoughts into an intelligible blog entry.
Now I am twittering, checking my email and Myspace, and managing my calender and to-do list all from my phone. I still wonder what I am missing out on though.
What will be the next life-altering application I will install on my iPhone?
