“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential—as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.” — Bill Watterson

So let’s begin. I awoke this morning to find that a core theme of mine manifested itself. I’ll give you five cubits to figure out which theme it is.

One was in the form of a private message from the Quorum, The Colonial Fleet‘s message board; I received a message from one of the kind prop replica makers there, who went out of his way to thank me for creating the Battlestar Wiki. It made my morning when I read it, if only because it is a testament to a resource that I and many, many people worked on over the past five years to create and maintain.

The second was the discovery of a very interesting fact. It is a fact that was revealed when I posted yesterday’s blog about the Battlestar schwag—Dr. Kevin Grazier was never given a copy of the Battlestar Galactica Cast & Crew Yearbook.

It is a discovery that disturbs me a bit, seeing as I had received one with thanks to my friends at NBC Universal, Propworx, and the former Battlestar production office in Vancouver. When I received my copy, I had been informed of the following: it was one of the last copies up in Vancouver not given to anyone, and that everyone who worked on the series received one. Given this information, I’m a bit distressed to just find out more than a year later that Kevin seems to have been overlooked. Honestly, my involvement on Battlestar is not to the extent of Kevin’s and, let’s be honest, he had far more to do with shaping the show than I (or anyone connected to the Wiki, really) ever did.

So before I received a copy, Kevin should have received one. That would have been logical, fair, and… look, the human factor throws all that out the airlock. Whoosh!

I’m not blaming anyone for this oversight, because these things do happen. However, since we know that the issue is present and I feel that it should be corrected, I’m going to at least open my mouth about it—if only in the hope of the right person at the right place, and at right time, becoming aware of this and having the power to fix it.

So, for those of you who read this and have any worthwhile connections at NBC Universal, please make it so that a book ships to Dr. Kevin. There might be an extra one lying around somewhere. Also, if someone is thinking of selling their copy, please strongly consider sending it to Kevin.

Let’s make this happen. Call it a late Christmas present, if you’d like. So say we all.

“I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes—it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

And here’s another:

“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:
a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life. I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

So, after flying out on a red-eye Friday, October 31st (Halloween night) and landing around 7:30 A.M. in Orlando, I’ve been busy catching up on things I’ve left unattended for 3 months while simultaneously working on the final items for the auction catalog. It is only just in the past two days that I’ve gone and trekked around Sebastian/Vero Beach for a spell, which I’ll continue to do tomorrow when I hit Best Buy and see how much things have changed. That place is probably the same hell-hole that I left willingly—and in an interesting fashion—back in 2007, but it’ll be interesting to go back in there and see how everyone is doing in the box. Everyone who is still employed there, anyway.

So, on my little pilgrimages over the course of two days, I’ve driven around the city to my old haunts. I haven’t really touched based with any friends locally, because I simply haven’t had the time since I’ve come back, but I’ve been to the mall and to the movie theater (saw “Zack and Miri Make A Porno”, “Madagascar 2″, and “Rocknrolla”). It’s an interesting experience going to the AMC Theatres in Vero, seeing as you only pay 4.50 to 9.50 for a movie ticket and the theater is only filled with 10 or so people… even less.

In Vancouver, the theater I went to—the ScotiaBank Theater—you paid an easy 12.50 CDN for a movie ticket, and $20 for any snacks. Also, the cost for things is just a bit higher, even with the exchange rate. (Although, at the end, there was a 20 cent difference between their dollar and ours, i.e. $.80 USD = $1 CDN.) Normally, I think those prices are just verging on more than ridiculous, however when you work 60+ hours a week, you really don’t care much and just need to take a break from all your worrries.

On the other hand, Vancouver is a bit more my thing, since I can walk to virtually any store from where I stayed. In Florida, lots of freakin’ driving… dirt roads… and little to really do.

So, anyway, back to my pilgrimage: I took my old driving routes from the mall to home, and ate at the same places I ate at when I worked at Best Buy. (Today, Chick-fil-A, tomorrow… crappy Subway.)

All this makes me very glad that I’m in the position to do what I want to do now, instead of going through the same old routines on a daily basis. It’s extremely eerie, particularly as it seems to me that I’ve lived another life for four years as I try to trace my steps.

Perhaps it’s just that I’ve grown into my own as a person that’s changed my perspective so much? I honestly don’t know… even as I type this, my mind wanting to wander off and my body wanting to get some sleep.

It’s also pretty pathetic—and I realize that as I’m writing this—but there’s a sense of needing to remind myself where I came from. Particularly when I’ve worked through a lot of my personal issues over the past year, as I’ve dedicated to trying to build up things from scratch, only to face one more obstacle after the other.

However, I’m pleased that things are starting to pay off now. A website that I started only as a hobby with the collaboration of uncounted others has given me a tremendous job opportunity with the auction thing, and I’m still working with Lawrence on getting White Eye Productions off the ground… not to mention the fact that I’m starting my own LLC, which I’m finalizing this week…

So… that’s where I’m at right now.

And yes, like I always say, I hope to update this blog a little more repeatedly… cuz there’s a lot of stuff I’d like to share with everyone, even those I’ve lost contact with over the years.

So say we all!