Little Fish, Big River, Bigger City

Aliens?

I'm not a big subscriber to the news in any of its forms. I usually get my news intake from walking to work each day and reading just the headlines from the Seattle Times, New York Post and USA Today through the newstand windows, always getting half the story. I used to read CNN but eventually faded. I don't have TV reception in my industrial loft and so therefore, I live a life of relative insulation from the world at large and I exist in a relative utopia as a result since my world isn't filled with the problems of the real world.

However, today, I clicked on a link on MSN regarding "India's UFO Problem" because it was just too enticing: http://www.msnbc.com/news/793179.asp?pne=msn

Now my mind reels with excitement and a slight tinge of expectant fear. Is this really it? Men In Black 3??? Are bugs from another planet attacking people in India by jumping out of glowing blue flying soccer balls? I've seen a few X-Files episodes and am simply not sure what to think however, I'm now drawn into this story and will most likely spend the next few days looking for more on it. Aliens. What a concept. I figure that fish must feel the same way when we invade their underwater world.

Spacecraft boats, noisily skimming the surface overhead frighten us because we know the aliens have returned. They drop huge nets and trap us before hauling us, kicking and fighting, onto their craft. Rarely does anyone escape or come back once the aliens have them. We believe from reports that sometimes we are put into tanks in their world, but more often than not we are killed and eaten by the hideous creatures who have strange thin scales growing on the top of their heads, like mops of dry seaweed. Sometimes, the aliens simply come down in spacesuits and travel among us, looking at us, flashing strange contraptions before they disappear. Other times, the spacesuited ones bring weapons and they shoot us and take us away with a long spear through our middle.

I've heard rumor that there is a small faction of rebel aliens who are actually on our side. They mainly work with the salmon who must run far up into the alien world by taking rivers upstream in order to spawn. It seems that there are aliens who actually take salmon eggs and hatch them in secret tanks. When the eggs hatch, they feed the fry until they are big enough to be released and then the aliens set them free. It's all such a mystery why some of the aliens kill us, why some flash at us, some just look at us, and some massacre us with great nets or with their oozing black goo of death. They simply don't make sense to us and we live in great fear each time they descend upon us without warning. Our sharks, protectors of the deep, do what they can but there are so few of these "Jedi's" left that it's a rare occurrence when an alien is subdued. Sometimes, during storms, our world is blessed when the aliens large ships break and sink through our world while the aliens fight to breathe our water but die without their spacesuits on. We of course take our time in eating the aliens as payback for all of our friends and family which they have killed over the years.

Our hope is that somehow, someway the rebel aliens will eventually win out over the killing aliens. Or maybe another type of alien will invade their world the way they've invaded ours. Every season, our numbers get smaller and smaller and we shiver at the thought that we may all become extinct before the aliens stop their killing of us. Until then, I will spend my days swimming among the coral and sea grass, waiting with anxiety every time I hear their ships coming for us. I'm but a little fish in a big scary world but what can I do but swim my days away as best I can and hope I'm never taken by them? I've heard that there are some places, like Hawaii and the Caribbean where we are never killed by the aliens but only observed. While I fear the aliens, I'm also very curious to see one face to face. Perhaps I'll move to the tropics. I've heard it's nice this time of year.

Daydreaming.

Today is a day for the calendar in my life. A few minutes ago, I experienced one of those tiny points in life where something in the grand scheme simply turns and clicks into place. I received word that I'm going to be published for the first time in my life. The details? Sometime in June, I wrote an article about sailing in the Caribbean for Sunsail Charters Newsletter and submitted it. Moments ago, I received a very complimentary notice and an edited version of the article which will be printed, along with a photo in the next newsletter.

No, I'm not receiving any payment for this submission, but the fact that I'm about to be a bona fide published writer is priceless to me. So, how did I get here and why? I think it's important to touch on the answers. First, a little background: one of my earliest memories was when I learned the word "day dream." The reason I remember it is that it was popped into my head by my dad, literally. I was prone to simply looking out the window of our kitchen while I sat at the table during mealtimes. My mind would wander off on adventures from scuba diving with Jacques Cousteau aboard the Calypso to walking on the moon with Neil Armstrong.

One day, as I was right in the middle of being a cowboy, I felt a sharp rap upside my head.

"Quit daydreaming and EAT!" came the order following the knuckle clunk of my dad's enormous fist attached to his six foot, seven inch frame. Dazed by the pain and just as dazed by a new word, I tried to regain focus and found that I was no longer a cowboy. I was a three year old with a baby sister on the way and it was lunch time, I guess, because magically there was a half-eaten plate of food in front of me. Being the classic child, my mind could really only hold onto one concept at a time and it was the word "daydream!"

"What's a daydream??!!" I asked with probably too much curiosity and excitement and a total lack of realization that this was about eating my lunch, not about picking up vocabulary. I knew the word "day" and I knew the word "dream" but wow! Here they were used together in a way that made me light up as if watching a new TV show.

"It's when you dream during the day with your eyes open." My mother explained while my dad just sighed and chewed away. He was a detective on the vice squad in the Seattle Police Department and my mother was a cocktail waitress in a small Chinese called "Chopsticks." I only recall being hit twice by my father before my parents passed away just three years after this first smack. Thirty-four years later, I figure that he must have been under huge pressure at work with some case since he dealt with murderers, drug dealers, prostitutes and everything in between on a daily basis. On top of that, childhood photographs and a visit to my first house reveal that we were relatively poor so I've added in financial pressure as another thing my dad had on his mind at the time. It was a tough life for my parents as dad worked all night shifts and mom worked part time as a hairdresser on top of her cock-tailing gig.

"So I was DAYDREAMING???" I asked incredulously that I could do something I'd never heard of.

"Yes." Mom patiently cooed while giving dad a look of disapproval for his "hit first, ask questions later" approach.

"So was I ASLEEP??? Was I sleeping with my eyes open???" I was beside myself with ultimate curiosity over this new thing.

"No, you were awake, just looking out the window dreaming with your eyes open."

"I WAS AWAKE AND DREAMING WITH MY EYES OPEN??!!!"

"Yes, sunshine, you were."

"EAT!!!!" my dad barked again, upset that the few moments when the three of us and my forthcoming sister could all be together was being eroded by my tangent.

"K..." I mumbled and set about trying to eat over the top of this discovery that a person could be awake AND dream. I wanted to do nothing but try again and again and dream all I could with my eyes open because I could see things in my mind and override my eyes that were open and looking at something else. It was magical and not even the burning lump on upper forehead could lessen my wonder.

Lunch ended eventually and dad's departure to his job was signalled with my mom and me waving out the front window as he drove off. Every day it was the same statement at this point by mom.

"Wave goodbye to your dad because we don't know if this is the last time we'll see him or not because he's a police officer." Mom would say as she waved my arm for me until I got the whole waving thing down better. It was a daily sobering thought for a three year old who hero-worshipped his dad for being the stuff Adam-12 episodes were made of. But on this day, I simply couldn't wait to get back to dreaming awake with my eyes open. I've been a world-class daydreamer ever since.

Eventually, life takes over and you begin to follow the currents of its twisting river and one day, if you're lucky, you wake up and decide that you're not following your calling. You're stuck in a job which results in a paycheck which keeps a roof over your adult head and food in your adult stomach. But your adult head and adult stomach sense something unfulfilled and at odds with who you are and you begin to think about what you should be. You return to days of childhood and daydreams to swim in search of answers. And again, if you're lucky you find them. And if you're luckier still, you decide that you want to live in that spot in the river which is teeming with answers that you could swim in for a lifetime.

For me, the little back eddy in the river of life which is the calm area I'm wanting to live in is writing. For writing is simply a way to take my world-class daydreams and make them real. And in making them real, it is hopefully a journey into a stream of income. For the last two years, I've been writing and writing and writing, to simply let all the swirling thoughts in my head flow. In the past year, the comments began that I should write a book. The comments came from everywhere in the daily rapids of my job. Eventually, I made up my mind to swim with the babbling comments washing over me. Today, all of those comments, and all of my swimming and searching have resulted in the news that I am about to be published. I feel like I've discovered the drips from a snowcapped mountain that start small but become a raging torrent just a few miles downstream. This first drop of melting snow mark the beginning of my spring that will eventually build itself into the overflowing banks of my eventual summer as a writer.

So Dad, where ever you are, I figure you had a hand in all of this, so to speak. Thank you for sending me this daydream. My eyes are open…and I finished all of my lunch

Power Point Personified.

Today, I was thinking about projects at work and how everything is put into Power Point for a presentation after countless hours of number crunching, strategizing, process elimination, scoping and just a dash of guesswork added in to make it interesting. In working at Amazon.com, it seems we live by Power Point...that is....UNTIL we leave the office. Then it's off to the whims of nature, random chance and our overbearing yet underpushing come-what-may attitudes. So why is that we spend so much time planning down to the last penny, down to the last minute for a simple project at work while our lives seem to sit idly by watching TV, playing video games and reading newspapers we'll forget by noon? It seems the only time I really get down to brass tacks and make a real plan is when it comes to vacation. I know the minute I'll leave, the minute my flight is supposed to take to the air, where I'll be staying and what I'll be doing each day. I plan out what I will wear for every activity while on vacation and I bring reading material surrounding the subject of my chosen locale.

Yet, in a 24 hour day, I spend roughly 14 of those hours NOT working and I have nothing to show for them. It seems each year races by twice as fast as the last which means I'm getting nothing done in half the time. This wouldn't be a problem except that my head is full of goals and dreams and my time is limited. Therefore, my balance sheet bleeds red when and my targets dates slide past due as if they were at Wild Waves Water Park in the Hydro-tube, whisking along in a fiberglass chute at breakneck speeds without a bump or scratch to show for it.

Why don't we plan out our lives the same way we plan out our work projects? Why don't I know what my bank balance is, or what I'm doing tomorrow night, or this week, or next year at this same time? I'm 37, looking back and wondering where the last 15 years went. This said, I've decided to start making a habit of planning out my life. I'm going to take this too-long project list and start making a Power Point around each one. Where to begin? A trans-continental bike journey, sailing the globe, building a kayak and paddling from Anchorage to Baja, climbing Everest, diving the Great Barrier Reef, seeing the Northern Lights? My list reads like I was 20 years younger and made of money. I'm neither.

I've decided to start my process with a few books, namely, "Finding Your Own North Star," "Keeping a Journal You Love," and lastly, "All About Me," which is a book that asks questions that when answered would give a reader a fairly good idea of what a person is like. Okay, time to get started then.

I will take each day and attempt to write a blog here regarding something read in each of the books in some form. Each one contains multiple exercises and questions and is aimed at making one more aware and more deliberate about living. This is precisely what a person like me needs since I'm wayward, floating and directionless with life full of dreams that won't get reached unless I actually get going on knocking them off my list.

All About Me: page 1. "Personal"

Name: Scott Kurttila
Address: 619 Western Ave, Box 21, Seattle, WA 98104
Today's Date: August 10, 2002
Place of Birth: Seattle, Washington
Astrological Sign: Pisces
Profession: Business Development (but hope to be a writer instead)
Education: Georgetown University, 1991 BSBA International Management and Marketing
Height: 6' 1"
Weight: 185 lbs.
Hair Color: Blond
Eyes: Blue/Gray
Blood Type: B+ (be positive...ha!)
Allergies: None

I never realized until today that I was affected so much by losing, haunted even. Yesterday was the Amazon.com Volleyball Finals and my team took a narrow second place however in my mind, we should've won but we just fell apart enough to lose in the third set by 3 points. The winning team took the huge trophy home, for the second year in a row. Ridiculously, I lost sleep over this event last night and was bothered by it all day today. The issue was not so much that we lost, but that we lost because of me. As team captain, I fielded a good team and as the rournament progressed, we picked up players from losing teams along the way. Two of these players, Suwan and Perry were outstanding clenchers. For the first time in the tournament, our entire team turned out and I had Suwan and Perry sit on the side for the first game since they were added during the semi's last week. Without them, we won our first game, a bit rough but victorious nonetheless. Then, in true idiot fashion, I left the pair sitting on the sidelines for the next two games when had I simply put rotated them in on game two, I would've changed the outcome entirely. This entry really has no point to it, except that I feel like I learned so much about using the tools I'm given in life to achieve the desired results. I thought about other areas of life where I've failed and how life has given me everything I need to succeed, wildly, yet I leave the proper tools for getting the job done right sitting in the toolbox while I go off and fail. I'm embarassed, I let our team down, I was rude to Perry and Suwan in that I invited them out to play and didn't even rotate them in. I'm just appalled at my "non-thinking" and my inability to simply tell a couple people to sit out for Game 2 which we would've breezed through with the clench pair rotated in. Maybe it's more important that I learned so much through the process of the agony of defeat. Going forward, I'm going to be more aware of using the right tools for the right job at the right time rather than turning off my brain while meandering into oblivion and non-success.

Perry and Suwan and the rest of my team, I apologize for my stupidity here. I hope you all forgive can me for my failings. Woe is me, but smarter am I now.