Author: Bart Leahy

Freelance instructional design, proposal, and aerospace engineering technical writer and an all-around nice guy. Here to help.

An Introvert’s Guide to Orlando III: Magic Kingdom Park

by Bart Leahy, posted in introversion, Personal

I was tempted to post, “You’re kidding, right?” Magic Kingdom is the original theme park on Disney’s Florida property. From 1971 to 1982, it was the only park. A larger version of Disneyland Park in California, Magic Kingdom has the most rides, the most fame, some of the longest lines, and the most traffic. If you’re an introverted adult and you find yourself going there, brace yourself. It’s a beautiful place with a lot of fun attractions, but the crowds are huge, loud, and bustling.

General advice

Like I said, Magic Kingdom has the most stuff in it and the largest crowds. If you have the opportunity, try to take on the park using a targeted strategy of some sort to reduce wear and tear on your patience:

  • Use Fastpass for your favorite rides. Really, Fastpass is a no-brainer for all of the Disney Theme Parks, but it definitely makes sense at Magic Kingdom. If you’re unfamiliar with Fastpass, it’s basically a reservation for a window of time to arrive in the queue for a particular attraction. Yes, you still stand in line, but it’s not nearly as long as the time you’d spend standing in the regular “standby” line. While you’re waiting for the Fastpass window to open for your favorite attractions, you can wait in standby lines for other attractions. My understanding of the system is that you get up to three Fastpass attractions per day. (I walk around the parks for exercise, I don’t actually go on a lot of rides when I use my Annual Pass.)
  • Take two days to visit the park instead of trying to do it all in one. Like I said, there’s a lot to see and do, especially if you’ve never been there before. Don’t let yourself get frazzled trying to do everything in a day. If you’re there for a day or you’ve been there before, just hit your favorites.
  • Take a break. This is pretty common practice, going back to when I was a kid and there was only one park. The idea being, you go to the park starting around opening time and do stuff for 4-5 hours. Then, assuming you’re at a Disney Resort, go back to your hotel and take a nap. Or, if you’re not staying on property, maybe just visit one of the Magic Kingdom Resorts and get away from the crowds and the heat. After you’ve rested, you can go back for the parade or fireworks.
  • Watch the parades and fireworks from Frontierland or Liberty Square. The biggest crowds are on Main Street because that’s where they have the most lights and, of course, the clearest view of Cinderella Castle. However, I’ve been able to see the fireworks just fine from the other two areas I just mentioned and sometimes the Castle as well.
  • Ride the attractions during the parades. Assuming they’re still open, the attractions  outside of Main Street U.S.A., Liberty Square, and Frontierland should have shorter standby lines because everyone’s at the parade. Watch the parade or fireworks a different day.
  • Leave before the fireworks start or as they are starting. My introverted father started me on this habit: I leave before the fireworks start. I used to think he was being a spoil sport until I started disliking large, noisy crowds. This is now such a normal part of my Disney habits, I don’t think I’ve actually watched Magic Kingdom fireworks from inside the park more than half a dozen times in 40 years. Instead, I watch them from the monorail, from one of the Disney Resorts, or even the parking lot. If it’s a new fireworks show and I have the time to wait for the crowds to disperse, I’ll watch and wait it out. Otherwise, adios.

Finding an actual quiet spot is a dubious proposition. However, there are a few places you can go where you’re not likely to find as many people or as much population density. If you need a place to really decompress and get away from the crowds, you’ll probably need to leave the park. There really aren’t a lot of “quiet seasons,” as there are at Epcot, which also is not as high-density a park.

Fantasyland

The best place I’ve found to avoid the crowds inside MK is actually in Fantasyland, which has the most attractions (the Disney word for rides). There is a small area on the west side of Fantasyland, on the path heading from It’s a Small World toward the Haunted Mansion. It’s actually partially fenced off from the traffic flow and has some benches and tables for sitting. Not a lot of shade, but some. Pull over there and relax.

Tomorrowland

Sometime in the last few years, Disney added a walkway between Space Mountain and Goofy’s Barnstormer. It runs between the Walt Disney World Railroad and the Tomorrowland Speedway. It has quite a bit of shade, though it’s possible that you have to pass a smoking section.

Liberty Square

Just a guess–it’s been a while since I visited the attraction, but the Hall of Presidents usually doesn’t have a really long line. After all, you didn’t go to Magic Kingdom to get educated or enjoy the quiet, did you? Oh, you did? Never mind. Give it a shot.

Main Street, U.S.A.

Okay, yes, this is the entry area of the park, and so subject to crowds. However, during the day, there are a couple places you might get out of the main traffic flow. As part of a larger refurbishment project they completed last year, Disney added to the number of footpaths and sidewalks between Main Street and Cinderella Castle. This extra walking space does a couple of things: it allows more space for walking around parade crowds as well as for watching the fireworks. However, when there aren’t parades or fireworks going on, some of the side paths allow you to get out of the traffic flow.

There’s also a pathway they added “behind” one side between Main Street and Tomorrowland. I’m not certain if it’s open all the time, but when it is as a traffic flow measure, you can use it to get from the Tomorrowland Terrace area to nearly Tony’s Town Square at the front of the park.

Adventureland

Again, this is a less busy rather than a quiet place, but the Swiss Family Treehouse can get you off the sidewalks for a bit.

Frontierland

Another sidewalk addition Disney added to aid traffic flow is along the riverfront–the walkway is actually a set of wooden piers in the midst of the river. When there are parades going on, the sidewalk eases traffic. When there aren’t parades going on, it’s a speedy way to get from the Splash Mountain/Big Thunder Mountain area to Liberty Square and Haunted Mansion.

Transportation area

The best quiet spot at Magic Kingdom is outside the gate but nearby. Back in the mid-1990s, Disney decided to sell a bunch of hexagonal bricks (around $100 a piece) as a way to fund a walkway that runs in front of the park. It’s hard to find because it’s actually attached to the Magic Kingdom Gold Boat Launch. You reach the boat launch by walking toward the Resort Monorail and then turning toward the boat dock. If there’s no line at the boat dock, you can walk past the boat queue and onto this great sidewalk that runs a good quarter or half mile in front of the park, heading in the direction of the Grand Floridian Resort.

There are a couple benches at the end of the sidewalk, if memory serves, and from there you can watch the monorails and boats on Seven Seas Lagoon go by, but I don’t know if there are any places to sit along the path. There are trees along the path, though, and really just a whole lot less noise. That’s your best bet to find a quiet spot at Magic Kingdom.

I’ll take on the Magic Kingdom Resorts at some point. No, really!

For the Love of Writing

by Bart Leahy, posted in Fiction, Personal, Writing

In a posthumous release of his correspondence, science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein reported to a friend that he had not been writing and had felt miserable and sick with a cold that wouldn’t go away, but once he started writing again, he felt 100% better. Something similar can happen to anyone who feels the creative urge.

Writing, for those of us who treat it as a natural and necessary part of ourselves, is essential to our health. It can be the source of our income, to be sure, but it is also sustenance itself. The very act of writing feeds our soul and helps us sort out the world. Writing is there to help us make a roadmap through the world, calm us when we’re irritable, allow us to rant and vent our rage when doing so publicly would be socially unacceptable. Creating something new–especially new worlds, characters, or situations–is exercise for the imagination.

It’s sad but true: my fiction writing has dwindled over the years. In fact, I can directly trace my loss in fictional productivity to starting my career as a paid technical writer. I dropped from writing anything from half a dozen to a dozen stories a year to two or three to one to writing every other year. I felt sad at the change but considered it a necessary by-product of spending all my day in front of a computer, hacking out words for other people’s use. By the time I got home, I had very little energy to write for myself.

In truth, my imagination has gotten flabby, much like my body can do due to lack of exercise. I have a lot of incomplete stories in my files–stuff I started and dropped because I felt the ideas stupid or the execution lacking and I lacked the energy or interest to rethink the story and fix it.

It’s one thing to write bad fiction (and trust me, I have plenty–note that I’m a professional technical writer, not a professional fiction writer). It’s something else again to transform the sow’s ear into a silk purse. That requires inspiration, alchemy, and careful feeding of the Muses, but mostly it demands a lot of hard work and a commitment to Heinlein’s dictum that “You must write. You must finish what you write.” After a long day at the office, it can be very easy to go slack on your own stuff, especially if no editors are clamoring for it and you have no deadlines to meet. So I’ve been lazy.

I’ve also been somewhat down lately. Lots of little things piled on to give me a Class A First World funk. Trust me, given a choice I’ll take my problems over anyone else’s any day, but that’s not to say that the marvels of middle age don’t vex me from time to time. I have worries and annoyances and things in my life that irritate me or make me seriously unhappy, just like everyone else. So yesterday morning I made a list of a dozen things I needed to do to get some feeling of control over my grouchy disposition. By the end of the day, I’d done maybe two. I went home from a social gathering feeling less than productive and not particularly proud of myself.

As I am prone to do when I’m in a funk, I lecture myself. I was giving myself a good earful in traffic about my general laziness and ingratitude for the gifts I’d been given in life when something strange began happening in the long-neglected imagination center in my brain. Hey, you know you could write a story about that, my subconscious was saying. My conscious mind stopped lecturing and said, “What?” Yeah, my imagination continued, you could write about someone seriously gifted going lazy. Why would he do that? What would make a genetically modified super-genius decide to underperform? So my logical conscious mind joined in the fun and started playing with ideas.

The story had practically written itself in the back of my brain by the time I got home. At least I had the structure, the main character, and the motivation. The rest was filling in the blanks. I think the story ran around six pages. Maybe ten. Whatever. But wow, did I feel better afterward! I had accomplished something, I had done something creative again, and I slept with the comfort of being myself again. My subconscious, rewarded for doing such a good job and nudging me out of my funk, treated me to a lot of various and confusing dreams, but it was like, “Okay, you wrote that, so here’s a bunch of other thoughts I’ve been storing up. What about this? What about this? What about this?” It’s a blur now, but there was enough stuff churning around that I’m sure the important thoughts will come back.

And all it took to restore myself was writing again. If I was feeling really ambitious, I’d try to get that story published, but let’s not get crazy. Silencing the inner critic is a blog for another day. For now, all I can recommend to writers who are in a funk is the same old rock ‘n’ roll: write it down, baby. Get it all out. You’ll feel a lot better.

What Myths Shape Your Reality?

by Bart Leahy, posted in Fiction, Personal, Philosophy, Writing

Heroes

Human beings have been telling each other stories for millennia. Why? What, exactly, is a story, and why do we bother?

A story is a narrative about an individual or group in conflict with the universe–another person or people, nature, forces within, etc. A story includes moments of danger and suspense: will the hero(ine) survive? Will they succeed in their mission? How will that success occur?

Stories fulfill a deep need in our natures for our existence to make sense. We want to believe that we can overcome dangers that face us in this universe. We want to believe that the values we defend mean something and that, even if our existence ends, those values will continue on after our death. The interplay of good and evil (or protagonist and antagonist) engages our emotions. The ratcheting up of suspense adds to the suspense of the moment and raises the stakes. All these things tell us what stories do, but they don’t tell us what stories can and do say.

Looking over human history, we’ve had stories that involved gods–superhuman versions of ourselves–as well as human heroes and villains, dragons and other terrifying creatures. We have told stories that challenged the forces of nature; defined ourselves as independent beings; saved villages or nations; fought tyrants or ambitious people like ourselves; and confronted the dark forces of the emotions or motives within ourselves. We continue to tell stories that force us to confront the dangers of the technologies we create or the evil we do in the present day.

Sometimes we tell these stories in the language of the present day. Sometimes we set them in the past. Sometimes we set them in the future. Sometimes we set them in realities completely different from our own. The motives for storytelling–even if the environments, moral structures, heroes/heroines, or tactics and tools change–remain the same. We are always trying to explain ourselves to ourselves. The stories that impressed me the most at an impressionable age were from science fiction and religion, giving me forever an interest in science, technology, and philosophy.

So the question I have for you is: which stories have you read (or written for yourself)? Which stories resonated with you and told you, in a convincing way, “Yes, life is like this, it’s about this, we should be this?”

 

How Original Are You?

by Bart Leahy, posted in Personal, Philosophy, Writing

It’s taken my over 30 years, but I’ve come to realize that being intelligent or a quick thinker doesn’t necessarily make you original. I wrote a lot of fiction in my youth (8-28), but that activity eventually passed. I became more interested in studying what other, brighter minds than mine had created. Some of that might be based on my day job, technical writing, wherein I translate engineering concepts (developed by someone else) into prose that other people can use on a practical basis. I’m not flashy in my writing, nor particularly emotional or dynamic. There’s a reason I’m a technical writer, not a marketing copywriter.

I really should have been a history writer, recording the thoughts and actions of brighter, better minds. And I might still do that some day.

What set me on this train of thought was not a rereading of my own writing (egad, perish the thought!), but simply reading about the history of a country I plan to visit someday soon. There were people in that nation’s past with more ambition, more exciting lives, more ability to change the world than I will ever have. In the present day, I can work for those people–Jason Hundley at Zero Point Frontiers and Darlene Cavalier at Science Cheerleader are true forces of nature–and I have just enough talent to be able to translate their ideas into something practical. I just lack the ambition or imagination to be them or to create the same level of dramatic enterprise.

Perhaps this is why I’m happily middle class, or middle management. I can execute other people’s brilliant ideas, I just don’t have the talent to come up with the bright ideas myself. And the thing is, at some level I’m okay with that. Changing the world involves too much struggle and aggravation. And, again, maybe being “bright” just isn’t good enough. If you’ve ever seen the movie or play Amadeus, I’m more like a contented Salieri than an effortlessly brilliant Mozart. I work to pay the bills, quite often. I’m not writing for the sheer joy of creation. I envy those people whose minds are exploding with new ideas…but would I want to be them? Not necessarily.

I have become a conduit and amplifier of brighter people’s good ideas. Am I okay with that? I suppose I’ll have to be. As was said in a Star Trek episode, “You can’t just wake up and say, ‘Today I will be brilliant’.” Raw talent can’t be taught. I’ve got to make the best of who and what I am. That’s not so bad, is it?

Feeding the Beast Properly

by Bart Leahy, posted in Personal, Uncategorized

Just what everyone wants to read about…someone else’s diet history. There’s a point to this, really. Read on if you’re interested in doing things to improve your health and (maybe) your body mass.

On the way to becoming Homer Simpson

For most of my life I have not been a “health food” nut. Or an exercise fanatic. In fact, until my 30s, I was pretty much an eat-what-I-want-don’t-exercise kind of guy. Okay, sure, I rode my bike or took walks around my neighborhood, but it wasn’t with any sort of health plan in mind. Then my 30s hit. That super-duper young-guy metabolism started wearing down a bit.

So I tried a few things–cutting back on this, eating more of that, and really things just weren’t improving. By 2012, I was a Homer Simpson weight, and that wasn’t good. I started doing serious reading on the subject, which for me was the only proper way to learn anything. I started getting more strategic–being conscious about my eating and exercising choices.

In 2014, I had the opportunity to help a friend write a class for Florida Hospital patients about to enter the baryatric surgery program there. That was an eye opener because while I was writing for people in much worse shape than I was, I could see what direction I was heading. And I also saw that advice meant for the seriously obese also could work for someone not-quite-as-fat as I was. I spent the money on a YMCA membership and talked to one of the coaches about reducing my personal level of “marbling.” Exercise is one part of the calorie-reduction equation (about 25%); a major part, however (65% or so), is the food I’m using to fuel my body. That needed to be fixed.

Unfeeding the beast

One of the most important things I learned in the process of writing that class was how to fix my diet. Not go full-Vegan or Mediterranean or Atkins or Pick-Your-Fad Diet of the Week. The goal of the Florida Hospital program (and, as a result, my own personal program) was simply to establish better, permanent eating habits. This focused on several things: what I ate, how much I ate, and when I ate.

Fixing what I was eating was surprisingly simple. A lot of it boiled down to eliminating processed foods from my diet. What’s a processed food? Pretty much anything that isn’t a direct plant or animal part. If it’s on the shelves instead of in a refrigerator, that means it’s got preservatives in it, and preservatives are bad. More to the point, the process of extending the shelf life of a food also means that you’re sucking out nutrients. Oh yeah, and all that great Chicago food–heavy fats, extra beef, deep frying–that had to be cut back severely. To like once a week. Or once a month. Or once a quarter. Or once a year.

Just to make things more complicated, while I was approaching horrific size, I was also having acid reflux (though that would take a couple years to diagnose) and sleep apnea, both of which can be brought on by poor diet. Just to make things worse, the combination of poor diet, minimal exercise, acid reflux, and sleep apnea were all reinforcing each other.

Controlling how much I eat has been an ongoing challenge, but a lot of it boils down to portion size–does the whole mess on your plate equate to a mass larger than the size of your whole fist? If so, it’s probably time to cut back. Also, most American restaurant portions are at least twice what you really need. I needed to go into a place looking to eat appetizers for dinner or expecting to bring home leftovers.

As to when I ate…that probably wasn’t as big a deal at home, but at the office, well-meaning coworkers had a tendency to bring stuff into the office, or my employer would graciously stock up on snacks. Most of it was usually bad for me, so those snacks had to go. And one of the biggest things I did? Quit sodas and juices. The acid reflux made it more or less a necessity. I could drink that stuff and feel like my throat was being clenched by Darth Vader or I could drink water and not feel that way. No contest. Oh, and as a result of quitting the soda, 20 pounds disappeared and pretty much stayed off after that. I could quit alcohol as well, but good grief, why take all the enjoyment out of life?

Specific shopping advice

What I really wanted to share in this post was some constructive advice on what to buy at the grocery store. It’s done me some good. Hopefully it will help you as well.

  • As noted above, try to eat natural foods. By that I mean actual plants or animal products, not things that have been processed in some way. A “process” can be defined as anything that extends the shelf life of an otherwise-plant or -animal product and take it out of the refrigerated section. Most of these foods can be found on the perimeter of your typical American grocery store.
  • Avoid the foods in the aisles. Again, anything “dry” or with a long shelf life has a lot of preservatives and a lot of nutrients taken out.
  • Eat only the serving size at one sitting. That helps you better gauge how many calories you’re actually consuming and it helps your food last longer. Most packages (again, if it’s in a package, that’s usually a sign that it’s been processed somehow) contain more than one serving size.
  • Reduce the amount of sugar and salt you’re consuming. This includes variations on sugar, like high fructose corn syrup, or sugar substitutes–and anything that contains them. You know what I’m talking about: cookies, cakes, desserts, anything with a nutritional information label that includes “additional sugars,” and any other thing that’s probably also going to rot your teeth.
  • Focus on fish or chicken as a source of protein or, if you’re more plant-friendly, beans or other things that contain protein but don’t come from an animal. Beef is bad for a couple reasons: it’s high in saturated fat, which is bad for your weight and also can affect anyone with acid reflux (ahem).
  • Choose whole-grain breads instead of plain white bread. The flour used to make white bread is processed like nobody’s business and so has little to no nutritional value.
  • If you find yourself craving snacks, buy things that are also direct plant or animal products like fruits, nuts, or cheese.

Is that all?

Actually, despite all this sage advice I’ve just dispensed, I’m now taking a specific class on maintaining a healthy diet through A Whole New Life because while these rules seem pretty straightforward, they also struck me as boring.  I’ve been in an ongoing struggle for the last 3-4 years with trying to find foods that are:

  • Delicious
  • Filling
  • Good for me

Usually I get two out of three. (I remain overweight in part because I haven’t been able to find foods that work for me.) I’m hoping the new diet coach has some recipes or things I can try that fit all three criteria. My goal, after all, is to eat well and happily into my 90s. I sort of have my mother’s philosophy on eating: “I could live into my 90s by eating only the right foods, but good grief, why would I want to?” With that mindset in mind, my goal as I reach beyond mid-life is to eat foods that won’t kill me while also eating foods that won’t make me wish I were dead. Is that too much to ask?

How Coupled People Shouldn’t Talk to their Single Friends

by Bart Leahy, posted in introversion, Personal, Uncategorized

Greetings, readers! I hope you had a pleasant Christmas/Federal Holiday/Day Off. On the whole, my Christmas was quite good. There are always those little annoyances, though, aren’t there? The remarks you really didn’t need to hear. What follows is an extended rant. If you’d like to avoid reading rants, ignore this post.

I’m a longtime-single male, so you can guess which button was pressed: “How’s the dating life?” As it happens, I’m a more private person than most, so regardless of my actual state, I consider this question rude. If I wanted someone to know my social status, odds are good that the magic words girlfriend, partner, lady friend, fiancee, or spouse would drop out of my mouth within a minute of starting the conversation without prompting. Well, for years now my response has been, “I’m single, thanks for asking.”

This is often followed up by an expression of anything from curiosity to sadness to actual horror. Because there’s nothing a single person loves more than being pitied, right? Anyhow, this expression is then accompanied by the usual follow-up question: “Why?”

My honest answer is, “Because I’m happy. Why screw things up?” And if someone pokes a little harder, I might explain that I’m too lazy to court and too selfish about protecting my free time.

I’ve used that response a few times, and usually the snark closes the subject. Others, however, are more persistent, and here is where the rudeness really amps up: “You should…” It’s at this point that the single person on the receiving end is treated to unsolicited advice about what they should be doing with their personal life:

  • You should try online dating.
  • You should get out more.
  • You should join X group/church/organization
  • You should meet my friend X.
  • You should have someone in your life.

The first four suggestions fall under the category of practical advice. As if, at the tender age of 46, I wanted to find a woman, but just didn’t know how to go about it. The coupled person might think they’re being helpful, but here’s the thing: if I or any other single person wanted a partner in life, odds are we’d be doing whatever we could to fix the situation, yes? And if we were serious about about partner-hunting, we might even ask for advice. Again, that assumes that I am seeking someone or that my situation is a problem that needs to be solved. That fifth bullet is merely an assumption on the coupled person’s part: You should have someone in your life. Again, my response is usually, “Why? I’m happy living as I am.”

Admittedly, this is not just an introvert thing, as I have a LOT of introverted friends who have navigated the dating mine field and managed to find someone they love enough to marry. Great! Good for them. This is simply a Bart thing. In the spirit of full disclosure and authenticity, I’ll just say it: I don’t date well. It brings out the worst aspects of my personality, and the problem has only gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. So that’s out there, thanks for asking.

But let’s get back to the coupled person who’s determined to “fix” the “problem” of the single person. Again, you might think you’re helping, but really, don’t unless you’re asked for help. The short version of this blog would be: shut up. You have no idea what the life of the single person in front of you is like. Now as it happens, I spent Christmas Day before the above conversation opening gifts I’d bought with a gift card received from a friend, baking cookies, and taking a long walk in the Florida sunshine. I managed all of that on my own and quite enjoyed it. “Oh!” the concerned coupled person might say, “But it would be better/more fun if you had someone to share those experiences with!” Maybe. You don’t know that, and shame on you for assuming so.

I have single friends who have been dumped just before Christmas; who have family members who are convinced they are spinsters and doomed never to marry because they are a particular gender and above a certain age; I have friends who are single parents and so must balance work, family, and a romantic life; I know others who have been burned badly by contentious divorces and others who have been physically abused by previous partners. And then some of us are just happier living alone–it’s not a problem, it’s a lifestyle choice. Bottom line: a single person might have any number of reasons for why they are in that social state, and most or all of them are none of your damn business. If you are unable to contain your curiosity, you might ask what the person’s status is or, at most, why. Once you move from inquiry into the realm of “you should do X,” you are intruding.

Imagine this: I learn that you are married. A horrified (or pitying) expression covers my face, and I say, “Oh my gosh, why are with someone? You should be single! Do you need the number of a good divorce attorney? Do you need someone to help pack your bags?” What do you suppose the reaction would be? I’d be considered rude, and rightly so. So whatever compulsion people have to fix the social state of their single friends, it needs to stop, and it needs to stop being socially acceptable to do so. Some individuals might, in fact, be unhappy with their singularity and wish desperately that it were different. How does poking at that wound help them? Like I said, I’m happy in my current state. What really bothers me is the presumptive and intrusive nature of the inquisition.

Again, back to the short version of “What do you do if you’re in a relationship and you encounter a single person?” Shut up.

Movie Review: Star Wars VII

by Bart Leahy, posted in Movie Review, Uncategorized

I will do my best to make this a spoiler-free review, as I’m posting opening day and a lot of people haven’t seen the film yet. Maybe I’ll do this in Q&A format.

Did you like the film?

Yes indeed I did! Star Wars is back*, with a movie worthy of the name for the first time since 1983. It has a good story that moves along at a pace similar to Episode IV, with a script that (for the most part) sounds like real people talking, albeit in a space fantasy universe. The characters are–and I can’t emphasize this nearly enough–likable. Not just our old friends like Han Solo, Chewbacca, or Princess (now General) Leia, but the new kids on the block. I found myself caring about these new characters in a way that I just could not manage with the prequel characters. What a difference good directing makes!

The technology in the film has that “lived in,” scruffy look that the original trilogy has, and of course all of it has the telltale music orchestrated by the immortal John Williams. And really, some of the moments in the film where you’ve got the original story’s characters doing their thing and Williams’ soundtrack doing its thing are quite enough to warm the heart of the most cynical Gen Xer. Note on that: I preordered the SWVII soundtrack, and unlike previous soundtracks, there are no “spoilers” in the musical piece titles. I did encounter that on the prequel trilogy soundtracks.

(*Yes, I know there have been other movies, books, comic books, and other media bric-a-brac in this universe, but I’m not so enamored of the series that I’ve been willing to watch all of them.)

Are there major plot surprises in the story?

Yes. If you want to know what the spoilers are, go here.

Can I take the kids?

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is rated PG-13 for several reasons, mostly violence related with some “language” and other situations that you might not want to have to explain to your curious, impatient, or easily frightened 6-10 year old. Your call. Some of the stuff that might bother younger viewers would qualify as spoilers, so bear with me if I don’t divulge too much.

Without revealing spoilers, what can you tell me about the movie?

Set around 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, we find the galaxy far, far away still in turmoil, this time through a war between The New Order (the bad guys) and the Resistance (the good guys). The bad guys, led by a new scary guy in a mask named Kylo Ren, have a new, scary weapon to terrorize the good people of the galaxy.

In the midst of this turmoil, we have some new characters living out their lives–a junk scavenger, a stormtrooper deserting his post, a crack Resistance pilot, a new lovable droid–as well as some people we’ve seen before, advancing in age, but still charmingly likable and doing things true to their characters.

Did I mention that the heroes are likable? Why is this such a big deal? Because the characters in Episodes I-III were so damned unlikable. I can’t blame all of the mess in Episodes I-III on the actors. Much of that must be laid at the feet of the director/executive producer/money man George Lucas, who in the years between 1983 and 1999 forgot how to write and direct.

Do you have any gripes with the movie?

While watching the film, I had a couple moments where I couldn’t understand what people were saying, either because the technobabble was  spoken too quickly or was overwhelmed by sound effects or music. Nothing critical and not often, but these things happened.

The political situation in this film is a bit murky, but then compared to certain other films in the franchise, it’s a model of parliamentary coherence. I might buy the novelization to see if some things I’m curious about are explained, but none of my questions affected the action or my enjoyment of the story.

There are also a couple of moments in the film that are predictable if you’re attuned to storytelling.

After the film I had to sniff around a spoiler site or two to pick up what other gripes there were to be found. I’m not going to lie to you: I had misgivings about this film due to some of the things director JJ Abrams did with the Star Trek franchise. He has a tendency to repeat things done with the original material he’s working with, if only out of nostalgia, but the things he did with The Force Awakens were done respectfully and handled entertainingly. There were places where The Force Awakens “rhymes” with the original film (e.g., mission to destroy large superweapon). As long as he doesn’t retell the entire Episode IV-VI trilogy, things will be fine.

However, given all of these nits above, none of that really bothered me because I got to involve myself in a story with characters I wanted to see succeed. Isn’t that why we go to the movies?

Should I go see it?

Yes! In the theater! I paid extra to see the film in 3D, which was a nice touch, but isn’t 100% necessary. In case you hadn’t noticed, this film has won me over simply because of the charm of the characters and JJ Abrams’ ability to tell a good Star War story. In fact, I found the film enjoyable enough to forgive him for much of what he did to the Star Trek franchise. That’s saying a lot, I guess, depending on the type of nerd you are.

Does Writing Make You a Better Person?

by Bart Leahy, posted in Fiction, Personal, Writing

Update: This post is quoted (nearly) in its entirety in Gutsy Choices: Action Steps for Super Life Change by Russell DeWitt. Aside from my little bits of wisdom below, I commend it to your attention for further reading.

This post was prompted by a question from my friend Russ. The specific request was:

[P]lease tell me what benefits the world of writing has done for you in your development as a person?

Since childhood, I’ve done multiple forms of writing, from fiction to school assignments to work products and journaling. School and work products are necessary for intellectual and professional development–development of the mind. Story telling is an exercise in creativity: imagining things that never were, jumping into the unknown of our subconscious and making it known through characters, actions, and places. Journal writing is an exercise in self-analysis in literary form.

Each of these forms has its own virtues and develops a different part of the whole mind.

Fiction writing is the equivalent of a mental quest or vacation. I’m trying to tell myself or other people how I see the world. Fiction helps me express myself. Sometimes it helps me solve problems or express I see in the world. Maybe some of my stories have brought some good to those read them.

Journal writing, for me, is the tool I use to fix problems with myself. I’ve been keeping a regular journal since I got a typewriter for Christmas 27 years ago. Sometimes I write with the assumption that someone else will eventually read my thoughts, most of the time my audience is myself. I’ve speculated on how to make the world a better place, identified ways to improve myself or to find fault with myself. Sometimes my journal is a one-sided therapy session where I explain what I’m feeling, either in handwritten or electronic form. My journal lets me plan, vent, grieve, shout, laugh, and pontificate in ways that might or might not be acceptable to others, but it helps me clarify who I am to myself.

Has writing made me a better person? That would be harder to say. I look back at my journals from years back with some embarrassment, either because my half-smart philosophies at some point in my past now seem childishly wrong or because problems that cause me pain today are all too familiar and haven’t been resolved. Some problems I’ve resolved, others have arisen to take their place. And yet I keep writing, in a constant quest to better myself and to understand myself and my place in the world.

I write because that’s what I do and how I perceive the world. It is so much a part of me I hardly know life without it. When I am gone, my writing is all that will remain. Perhaps that will be enough to speak to the ages.

What Are Your Priorities When You Car Shop?

by Bart Leahy, posted in Personal, Philosophy, Uncategorized
This past week a friend asked for advice on car shopping as he’d not done it in a while. Perhaps you will find it useful as well.
In 2002, I gave up on American-branded cars. I’d driven Chevy, Buick, Olds, Saturn, Pontiac, and God knows what else. I bought a 2000 Honda Accord and loved it right up to the point some idjit drove out in front of me and killed it. Figuring I’d like another Accord, I got a 2009. I have been much more disappointed, though it took me a year or more to figure out what I didn’t like–the lines of sight are so bad that I backed into another car, a pole, and a garage door because I was unable to see how close I was. Surprisingly I’ve managed to hang onto it without killing myself. I’m about $3K away from paying off the Accord, and I’ll be glad to stop the paying. If I had steadier employment, I’d try something else–maybe Toyota, maybe Nissan since I’m doing work for them.
Anyhow, if you ask me what my biggest issue is when buying a car, it’s reliability–meaning how often is it between replacing major components. All the American-branded cars I had were just awful. Air conditioning, brakes, steering, wheels, interior: all sorts of major things were breaking down and I was plunking down a lot of money for big-ticket problems at a time when I didn’t have a lot of money. I’d test-driven Toyotas and Hondas and found (in 2002) that Honda Accord was a vehicle I liked. The 2009 model, not so much.
Here are my priorities, more or less in order:
  1. Reliability/mean time between failures
  2. Body type (sedan) and style (something not too boxy)
  3. Color (interior and exterior)
  4. Age/Mileage (I’ve never bought new, so I try for something <2 years old and with <20,000 miles on it–harder to come by in the current economy, but that’s still a good guideline)
  5. Automatic transmission
  6. Field of view through the windshield (one reason I don’t buy Chrysler products, for example, is that while their “cab forward” designs are sleeker than anything, they provide surprisingly minimal visibility)
  7. 4-cylinder engine (fuel economy/consumption)
  8. And if I’m feeling frisky when I buy, I’ll look at options like a sun roof, better stereo, and power seats/windows.
Just noticed that I didn’t include “price.” I guess my price range depends more on how much I have on hand and how much I’m willing to spend on a monthly payment. The only negotiating I’ll do will be to get the monthly payment inside my “window.”
Consumer Reports is worth consulting–Father Dan swears by it. If/when I buy another vehicle, I will probably use the same criteria, with an additional line item for visibility of the vehicle’s front and back ends. Live and learn.
And if there’s one thing I learned after numerous “experiences” with dealerships and private owners, I will from here on stick with Carmax. I just want to buy a car, not negotiate and play games for three hours. I’m a retail kind of guy. If I want a specific car and it matches my needs, I’ll buy it. If it doesn’t, no amount of arm-twisting  or wheel-dealing is going to change my mind.
I hope you find this useful.

Book Review: Carrying Albert Home

by Bart Leahy, posted in Book Review, Fiction, Uncategorized

The premise for Homer Hickam Jr.’s latest novel is intriguing enough to make you want to read it and hilarious enough that you expect to be entertained. Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of A Man, His Wife, and Her Alligator will do both. Hickam, best known for Rocket Boys (a.k.a. October Sky), has pieced together a love story based on stories his parents told him while he was growing up in Coalwood, West Virginia.

Years before Homer Hickam Senior and his wife Elsie raised their boys in a small mining town, they had other dreams, loves, ambitions, and adventures. Homer’s mother Elsie spent some time after graduating high school in what would be my future home town, Orlando, Florida. She lived with a “rich” uncle (who would eventually lose most of his money in the Depression) and fell in love with an up-and-coming actor and dancer named Buddy Ebsen. Yep, that Buddy Ebsen–he of later Jed Clampett/Beverly Hillbillies fame. Ebsen left Orlando for New York and later Hollywood to pursue his acting career. Elsie mooned over him, but eventually went back home to West Virginia to marry a boy she admired, Homer. As a wedding gift, Buddy sent an alligator from Florida, who became the Hickams’ pet, Albert.

If keeping a four-foot alligator in your bathroom and walking it around on a leash seems a tad odd, even dangerous, you probably wouldn’t be far wrong. That seems to be how Elsie Hickam lived her life. Eventually, Homer Sr. lays down the law and says, “It’s the alligator or me!” Elsie seems willing to accept Homer’s ultimatum, but only if he agrees to drive the gator back to Orlando to give him a decent home. What follows is a road trip that feels like a mashup of Forrest Gump, It Happened One Night, and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (more on him in a bit). In the pre-Interstate Highway era, long-distance travel across the U.S. was still a bit of a challenge, even with road maps, and Homer and Elsie get themselves into a series of adventures and predicaments as they make their way gradually southward to give Elsie’s alligator a home.

While the reader knows the eventual ending–the husband and wife will eventually settle in West Virginia and raise Homer Hickam, Jr.–you’re not certain how, and it certainly doesn’t seem like it will end up that way. If this book is a love story, it is also an exploration by Hickam of answering the question of “Who were my parents?” As Hickam put it when I reached out to him on Twitter, “It was a book I needed to write.”

Elsie does not like living in Coalwood and tries to convince Homer to escape with her. Barring that, she hopes to escape the coal-miner’s life with Homer. She’s strong-minded and up for any adventure. Her favorite saying seems to be, when an opportunity is presented to her, “I always wanted to be an X (nurse, pilot, actress, etc.),” and hijinks thereafter ensue. The adventure of Carrying Albert Home, then, is a story of two people struggling in a marriage with vastly different expectations for their lives. Homer, a serious, literal-minded coal miner, is happy to live, raise a family, and die in Coalwood. Elsie, who had spent time in secretarial school in sunny Florida, hopes for a more exciting, adventurous life with someone like the actor Buddy Ebsen.

Along the way from West Virginia to Florida, Homer’s future parents face dangers from bank robbers, moonshiners, labor disputes (with Homer taking one side and Elsie the other), minor-league baseball in the rural south, smugglers, and a few celebrities along the way, including Ernest Hemingway and the aforementioned John Steinbeck. All of this happens, with various twists, turns, and side trips while keeping Albert the alligator in tow and a mysterious rooster who joins them along the way. Elsie’s adventuring spirit and Homer’s diligence and doubt about his wife’s love move the story forward in the way common to many love stories. Instead of two single people seeking love, we experience instead two imperfect people struggling in their marriage.

I did note that this book appears in the fiction section (the subtitle includes, after all, “the mostly true story”), not the nonfiction section. This is a novel based on true-or-not stories Homer’s parents told him over the years. Perhaps they’re tall tales, perhaps they’re the real McCoy, but the individual adventures drive forward a love story that is worth reading because it involves real, married people. It’s a poignant reminder that struggles, challenges, and adventures are not just for courting but can and should continue after a couple becomes man and wife.