How To Be... an Ornithologist

What do you call a bird doctor?
A quack.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Most of my interest in bi... um, no, wait a minute, virtually all of my interest in birds comes from the fact that they are the direct descendants of the dinosaurs. However, it's not enough to make me want to study them. Mostly because they are just about the stupids animals, as a class, in existence. With the exception of fish, which make birds look brilliant. And don't start on me about how smart birds are, because they're just not. This isn't my opinion. On the animal intelligence scale, birds are way down there. Waaay down there. Right above fish.

I suppose that doesn't say much for the intelligence of dinosaurs. Oh, well...

Even stupid animals are deserving of study.

Ornithology is actually very important in its relation to climate studies. The health of bird populations, which is fairly easy to detect within an ecosystem, is indicative of the health of the ecosystem itself. So, although birds are dumb, they're important. And I could take this moment to go off on an ecological rant, but I won't. Just know that I could.
Penguins.
Yeah, that sums it up.

Anyway...

How does one become an ornithologist?

Well, most of the sources I looked at started with "Have a love for birds." That sounds pretty reasonable, but I don't think that's necessarily accurate. One of my wife's college roommates was deathly afraid of birds. No, I don't know if it was related to

Whatever the reason, she started taking classes about birds and learning about birds and ended up an ornithologist, so a love of birds might be a helpful thing, but it's certainly not a prerequisite.

Schooling is also not exactly a prerequisite, but it certainly helps in getting hired on at places. Audubon, a pioneer in ornithology, was mostly self-taught through direct observation. Of course, that was nearly 200 years ago. A more certain course is to get a degree in zoology or something similar and go from there. You can get work with just an undergraduate degree, but, of course, the more schooling you have, the better your chances. It really depends upon how exclusively you want to work with our fine, feathered friends. Really, ornithology only requires that you study birds. You could have one of many related careers (geneticist, ecologist, wildlife biologist) and be classified as an ornithologist, also.

How To Be... a Ninja!

This post started out as my "A" post. No, really, it did, because I was going to do "assassin." However, everything I was looking up about assassins kept leading back to ninja, and who ever says, "I want to grow up to be an assassin"? No one I ever knew. No, everyone said either, "I want to be a ninja," or, "I want to be a ninja assassin." I think assassin is more of a subheading under a lot of other careers these days, anyway, meaning that you get trained to be something else, first, like, say, a sharpshooter in the military or a spy or, well, something and, then, end up using those skills to kill people.

Interesting fact: the term "assassin" actually has Middle Eastern origins. The Order of Assassins, founded by Hassan-i Sabbah, dates back to just before the First Crusade.

But what about the ninja?

I don't want to get into an actual history lesson, here, so, to put it simply, the ninja--or shinobi, as they were called back in the 1400's--were a reaction to the samurai during a period of great unrest in Japan. The samurai were bound by strict codes of honor and combat and weren't free to... take care of certain types of business. The ninja (shinobi) came about as a result. They had no such codes and developed as covert agents using more unorthodox means: espionage, sabotage, assassination. A samurai would never assassinate anyone. Contrary to popular opinion, the ninja were not strong in direct combat skills, generally speaking, and confrontation of that sort was only a last resort. In short, the ninja had no honor and were outcasts from the rest of Japanese society.

So the first thing you need in order to be a successful ninja is a questionable moral compass. You have to be willing to, well, kill people... behind their backs, so to speak. Sneak and break into places. Steal. Spy. Wait... this is sounding kind of familiar...

You need to learn the art of silence. One source I found said simply, "Practice walking quietly." In a broader sense, you can't go around telling people you're a ninja. I actually had a friend in high school who bought himself a "ninja suit" and told people he was a ninja. That's how you know when someone's not. But, as to being quiet, as a ninja, you may need to stayed concealed for days at a time, so silence is a must.

You have to learn how to think ahead. Plan your escapes in advance. The ninja have been referred to as ghosts, and this is why. A successful mission can rely on a planned escape route. And make sure you have more than one planned.

Be a master of your whole self. It's no picnic keeping concealed for days at a time, so you have to be a master of your body. Also, remember that no one should know you're a ninja, so you can't go showing off, which may mean walking away from a fight in disgrace rather than demonstrating your skills and kicking some ass. See, a samurai would never walk away.

As for the killing, you have to be able to kill people in secret. Knowing about poisons is a strong skill set for a ninja. What each poison does for whatever effect you're going for. Should it be painful? Should it look natural? Should it scare other people? Long distance ways of killing are also important, so things like the bow and arrow or the blow dart (or, in today's world, a sniper rifle). Sometimes, killing someone would mean hiding for days in a toilet, so, well, be prepared for anything.

You know, all of these things kind of sound like being a CIA agent, so, maybe, that's the best way to be a modern ninja.
Well, that or joining Alex's ninja army. Yeah, that one sounds a lot safer. And much less likely to have you hiding in sewage for three days. So that's my advice; drop by and see Alex and see if he has any spare pajamas for you.

How To Be... a superModel (and Lost in the Garden)

First, today is "Part Nineteen: Lost in the Garden" for FREE!

But more on that in a moment, first:

So you want to be a supermodel, do you? Well, were you born a freak of nature? No, seriously, were you? Because, if you want to be a supermodel, that's the best and easiest place to start. Just be born exquisitely beautiful. Yeah, I know that it may be a stretch to think of these people that we put on pedestals as freaks of nature, but it's true; they are.

How can I say that?

Because of the bell curve.

Most people, no matter what you're measuring: intelligence, athletic ability, beauty, fall into that tall hump there in the middle. The average folks. Of course, in our current American society, we try to play it off that no one is average and that everyone is special, but it's just not so. All you have to do to know that some people are genetic freaks, the people born at either end of the spectrum, is look at a picture like this:

Those people are at the "definitely more than others" end of the curve (most of them) and are as much a genetic anomaly as the people born at the "definitely less than others" end of the curve. Like this:

Yes, that is Sloth from The Goonies. Yes, I know he's not real.

However, being born with the looks is not a guarantee of success, nor is being born without them a guarantee of failure. As with most things, hard work can take you places that innate ability may fail to reach.
For instance, Cindy Crawford was frequently told early on in her career that she would never make it.

The mole was seen as a blemish by many magazines and agencies, and they made the assumption that no one would be interested in seeing pictures of her.

With Crawford as inspiration, here are some things you can do to help your supermodel chances:
1. Have a healthy diet and keep yourself in good physical condition.
2. Take care of your body: hair, skin, teeth, etc.
3. Develop a portfolio.
4. Attend a modeling school.
5. Pick a specialty and develop a look. The more unique the better.

There you go. Simple steps that can start you on your path to supermodel stardom!

Today is the FREE! release of "Part Nineteen: Lost in the Garden." It will be FREE! today, Monday, April 15, and tomorrow, Tuesday, April 16. Joining #19 on the FREE! list today (only) will be
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Eleven: The Kiss"
"Part Ten: The Broken Window"
"Part Nine: The Shadow of the Tree"
"Part Eight: The Cold and the Dark"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Five: The Police Car"
"Part Four: The Cop"
"Part Three: The Bedroom"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
That's 14 out of 19 parts of Shadow Spinner available for FREE! today only! But that's not all! Also FREE! today is the "zero" part, "The Evil That Men Do," so that makes 15 out of 20. That's not too bad!

So, yeah, I realize that "Part One: The Tunnel" is not available for free (because I'm all out of free days for it), but it's only $0.99, so, if you pick that one up, you can get all the way to part 12, today, without spending more than two bucks (because part seven is also not quite available again, yet, for a free day). What kind of a deal is that? A great one, I'd say!
And, just to try to convince you, here are some of the things that people have been saying about "The Tunnel" and Shadow Spinner:

• There is room, though, for a thinking man's fantasy-father tale. There should be signs and portents. There should be odd things happening around the edges. Mom should be a little damaged and a little mental. Suspicious things should happen and there should be a slow unfolding of what's going to happen and what might happen. That's what you get here.
  
  And you get it with real style. These chapters are not overwritten. If anything the structure is spare bordering on minimal. But it's clean and sharp and effective. This makes for a satisfying tale that builds slowly but inexorably to greater and greater dread.
• Even if you don't read the rest of the series, this stand alone story is just worth reading in itself. It's dark, it's a little eerie, and the moment I started it, I felt like I was a kid again walking home from school, experiencing child-like fear from such silly, common things as dark tunnels and the shadows that creep within them.
• Personally, I can't wait to read the rest of Tib's story.
• The story far exceeded even my high expectations.
• Loved it, my favorite story of Andrew Leon's so far. Can't wait for the next one.
• I'm really enjoying the serialized installments of this mysterious little novel.
• What can I say Shadow Spinner gets its hooks into ya.

Oh! And as an added bonus, and I don't do this very often, today only, you can get

"Christmas on the Corner" for, you guessed it, FREE! Yes, I know it's not Christmas, but you'll enjoy it anyway.

How To Be... a Lumberjack

First, how not to be a lumberjack:

Second, and I didn't know this, but lumberjacks don't really exist anymore. No, these days, they are called loggers. The term lumberjack, or lumberjill for women, is reserved for woodcutters prior to the introduction of modern logging equipment like chainsaws. These guys used axes and hand saws, were the manliest of men. In fact, they developed their own culture around their profession embracing strength, masculinity, and the confrontation with danger. In fact, even today, logging is still one of the most dangerous professions there is.

100 years ago, the way to become a lumberjack was to be strong and be willing to do the work. Be willing to risk your life, because that's what it was. The work was migratory, so you had to be willing to move around and live in logging camps, which were often as dangerous as the work. The pay was low, and the work was hard, but there was also a strong feeling of brotherhood and tradition among lumberjacks which, I suppose, made it worth it to those willing to do the work. Also, it was a good place to disappear if you needed to do that, provided you could do the work.

The working conditions aren't so bad anymore, but it's a little more difficult to become a logger these days. You can't just walk up and get hired on because you're strong. Logging companies want people with experience, and you can't take classes for this stuff, so the only way to learn the trade is to do the trade. Small, local tree trimming companies are good places to get the necessary experience, and they are often willing to take unskilled workers and train them up: how to use a chainsaw, how to climb a tree (and be able to use a chainsaw while up in the tree), and how to fell trees in difficult areas. City governments can also be places to get hired on to learn this type of work. If you feel logging is the career for you, it's possible to move on to a real logging company once you've learned the ropes.

If your heart really lies in being a lumberjack, a real lumberjack, there are still ways to do that as the lumberjack culture has been kept alive these past 70 odd years through lumberjack competitions and the like to determine who the real men are. These competitions require the traditional skills of a lumberjack: ax throwing (you know, to take down those trees that are trying to escape), ax chopping, individual and team sawing, log rolling (a favorite in cartoons), and pole climbing. The only real problem with this is that if you really want to be able to win these competitions, you have to be willing to make training for them the equivalent of a job, so you better be independently wealthy or still live at home with your parents.

How To Be... a Knight

The word "knight" conjures up all sorts of images, but I bet the one that charges to the forefront is something like this:

You know, that whole "knight in shining armor" thing. But the ways of becoming a knight have changed through the years.

For instance, it is both easier and harder to become a knight today than it was, say, 1000 years ago. Rather than learning to wear armor and ride a horse and fight with swords (which all sounds rather difficult and time consuming), these days, you only have to make a significant contribution to British society to be knighted. Somehow, the learning to wear armor, ride a horse, and fight with swords sounds easier. And more dangerous.

But, since I know you are all thinking about shining armor and all of that, we'll take about that kind of knight and not Sir Ian McKellen or Dame Maggie Smith.

So what did it take to be a knight all those long years ago? Well, let's look at that on the historical continuum.

The word originates from a word meaning servant, which eventually came to mean a military servant following a king. So, at that time, about 1000 years ago, all you needed to do was pick up your weapon (which probably wasn't a sword) and follow the king or warlord or whomever into battle and you were a knight. Pretty easy. You didn't even have to know how to fight, which was good, because most of those guys weren't actually trained in combat, not like we think of it.

Within a few hundred years, during the Hundred Years' War in fact, the specific sense of the word had changed to mean a mounted heavy cavalryman. These guys did know how to fight and were trained to both wear armor and wield a variety of weapons while mounted, so the meaning of the word had the connotation of a skilled warrior. By about 1300, being a knight was a rank of dignity that was bestowed because of martial prowess. To be a knight was something that was earned, and it wasn't easy. I think this ideal is probably what most people think of when they think of knights, although we weren't really to the "shining armor" part quite yet.

But the word wasn't finished changing...

See, to be a knight you had to have a horse, a warhorse, in fact, that could carry a man in full armor and often wear armor itself. These were not cheap, so, basically, only the wealthy, the landowners, could support owning a warhorse. By 1500, the term had already begun to change to be an honorific for landowners. Yes, they were still required to be able to sit a warhorse if they needed to go to war, but they weren't necessarily good fighters. Actually, it's slightly more complicated than that...

If you had money and owned land and had horses, you could afford to have your sons taught to fight, so it was pretty normal that the wealthy had some fighting skills that placed them above the masses, but they no longer had to demonstrate those skills to be a knight; they just tended to gain the skills by the fact that they were knights. Some of them were very skilled, but, mostly, it was a title of position, not ability. And it was around this time that what we think of as the "knight in shining armor" really came into being, because that was the time period when armor technology really began to take off.

Plate armor as developed in the 1400's.

So there you go, many different ways of being a knight. Of course, you can't really be a knight in shining armor anymore, not in any real sense. However, you can always join the Society for Creative Anachronism to get a taste of what it would have been like.

How To Be... a Juggler

When I was in high school, I decided one morning that I should be able to juggle. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing. It wasn't that I wanted to be able to juggle, just that I thought that I ought to be able to juggle. No, I have no idea why I decided that. At any rate, it was a Saturday morning, and I was at work in the gym at church, but it was a pretty slow day or too early or something, because I only had a couple of kids. They were both just skating, so it didn't leave me with a lot to do other than just be there. Maybe I was just bored, but I don't remember that as having anything to do with my idea of "oughtness" about juggling.

A few tennis balls later, and I was learning to juggle. I worked on it for a few hours until I had it down. Or up. Or around. Or whatever.

Once it was late enough that people my age were crawling out of bed, teenagers began to show up, and I had to actually do some other work; however, my best friend showed up, and I demonstrated my new skill. His response was something like, "That's great, but you're doing it wrong." He took the tennis balls from me and showed me the proper way of doing it, which was not around in a circle like they do it in cartoons. My reaction was something along the lines of, "Well, this is how I'm going to do it," because I wasn't going to go back and try to learn some other way of doing it.

Maybe if I'd had access to Arlee Bird, I would have learned to do it right the first time. What? You didn't know Lee could juggle? Well, now you do. And, due to the miracle of the Internet, something I didn't have back when I was in high school, here he is to tell you how to juggle!

Take it away, Lee! Or something like that...

     It takes a lot of balls to be a juggler.  You've got to learn to throw up and then catch what you've thrown up.  Er, this is not coming out right.   Let's just toss out this opening and let me start again.

     Juggling is an art that incorporates the mental disciplines of math, science, and physics and blends them with the physical disciplines of movement and balance.  Juggling is not difficult if you are willing to focus on what you are doing and then practice.  Once it comes to you it's much like riding a bicycle or something of that nature.

      Want to learn to juggle?   Start by learning the basic three ball cascade pattern.  This is a matter of keeping three objects moving in regular alternating arcs for a sustained period of time.  You must learn to maintain a continued one, two, three waltz rhythm with the three arcs.  A juggling count is very helpful in the beginning.

      The first step is to master one object, preferably a ball or a spherical beanbag, tossed from one hand to the other.   Learn this toss from right to left, then left to right, repeatedly without dropping and keeping the same identical arc each time.  Back and forth, back and forth, until you've perfected the feel of the toss and the catch.

     When the first arc is mastered, then start with a ball in each hand.  Focusing on the arcs, toss the first ball from the right hand.  When that first ball reaches the peak of the arc and begins to descend toss up the ball in the left hand in an equal arc, but not on a collision course with the first.  Repeat over and over until the movement comes naturally.

      As you continue the alternating passing of the two objects between your hands, begin to imagine the third object becoming a part of the pattern.  Now instead of the one-two repetition of throws, think of the one-two-three rhythm with the two objects and one imaginary object.   After the tosses, the hand movements, and the rhythm are ingrained in your mind you can add in the third ball.

      The visualization should have helped, but the actual third object might be intimidating and confusing at first.  The main thing is don't give up and keep that waltz rhythm in your mind.  In the basic juggling pattern your hand and arm movements remain the same and the arcs of the objects should also be repetitive.  Juggling is like music.

      I recommend that you practice over a bed so you don't have to chase balls or bend over too much.  You will be picking up dropped objects a lot at first.  Juggling is good exercise, but in the learning process it might be more exercise than you'd want.  Your focus on the juggling pattern will also be better if you aren't chasing objects all over the room. 

      After you've essentially mastered the basic pattern you will be ready to experiment with more arcs, heights, speeds, and other pattern variations.   And don't forget the essential rule when performing your new skill before an audience:  If  you drop something just keep going and act as though it was meant to be.   Learning the skill of recovery is one of the most essential components in a jugglers bag of tricks.

      Now go learn to juggle!  There are many healthy benefits for mind and body.  You might even be able to pick up a few bucks juggling on the street for tips.

How To Be... an Incredible Hulk (and an Indie Life post)

Okay, so this entry may seem like an odd choice (my wife totally disapproves of it), BUT, if you follow along to the very end, it will all make sense. Probably. I think it will. It does in my mind, anyway. Besides, in a comment back on this post, Rusty said that growing up to be the Incredible Hulk

was his childhood dream, and I felt like that deserved some recognition. I wanted to dig up old bones; he wanted to "turn into an enormous green rage monster."

But how would one really go about doing that?

Well, my first bit of advice is to be the age of a middle schooler. They have the whole flying into a rage monster thing down. Most of us grow out of that, though, so what other way would one have of becoming a Hulk?

Well, in pretty much every version of the Hulk out there, the first thing you need to have is some pretty serious anger issues, ideally that you're suppressing. For some reason, gamma radiation will release this suppressed anger while also turning you green. Unless you become the a red hulk.

But, then, I'm not actually sure they used gamma radiation on those, so let's just stick to green. Which takes us back to gamma radiation, which is the second necessary ingredient to Hulkify yourself.

Originally, this gamma radiation was delivered via a gamma nuke, but I don't suggest this as your option. Also, it turned him grey

which isn't as impressive in that he looks more gorilla-ish, but he does dress better. Sometimes. But I digress...

More recent iterations of the Hulk have included such things as genetics research and bioengineering, and, honestly, those things put the idea of something Hulk-like into the realm of possibility. We are already working on programs to produce results like this. Okay, maybe now quite like busting out of your clothes and turning colors, but still...

At any rate, if you really want to be the Hulk or Hulk-like, I would bet there are plenty of programs that you could volunteer to join for "testing." I'm sure there will be a lot of paperwork to fill out. Mostly paperwork involving non-disclosure agreements and, um, whatever those things are called where you don't hold the other people responsible when you burst into a green rage monster.
There may also be private individuals who would not need you to sign all of that messy paperwork.

The point is that, if this is something you really wanted to achieve, it's not out of the realm of possibility anymore.

This is also an Indie Life day.

People seem to always want something for nothing, and I get that. I do. Free is good, right? But that's not really what I'm talking about, because free implies that the giver is making a gesture. It's his choice. No, what I'm talking about is when people work the system to take advantage of a situation to get something for nothing.

For a while, Amazon allowed, through it's affiliate program, people to get something for nothing. Just by listing the daily free Kindle listings on their site, an affiliate could earn money from downloads that Amazon wasn't making any money off of. It went on for quite a while before Amazon put a stop to it. The thing that gets me about this is that these people that were taking advantage of what was basically an oversight on the part of Amazon began complaining as soon as Amazon said it would no longer pay affiliates for free downloads. Basically, if we don't make any money from it, you don't make any money from it. I don't see anything wrong with that.

A lot of these people that run these sites advertising free books have been yelling very loudly, though, not that it's doing them any good. Personally, I just don't understand how anyone can feel justified in complaining about not getting something anymore that they were, in effect, stealing to begin with, but they are.

To make up for this lack of income, many of these sites want to, now, charge the author for these services, services that many authors didn't know they were receiving in the first place. On the surface, there's nothing wrong with this; my issue is the way some of these sites are going about it. They want you to have a free offering (to pull in clicks) and a paid option which will earn them affiliate money from Amazon. In effect, they want to be paid from both sides at once. And, maybe, that's okay, it's the way some of these sites are going about it that bothers me along with the fees they want to charge the authors for the service.

Which is how this applies to Indie Life. It's important, as an independently published author, to not get roped into paying more for a service than you're going to get back from using it, and most of these kind of sites are going to do just that, charge you more for the service than you will make from it. Sometimes much more. So what I'm saying here is "be careful." Before you spend any money to promote your book, make sure you do a full evaluation of the service. What kind of traffic do they get? What kind of experience have other authors had? Are they upfront with you and will they answer your questions?

I've gotten pretty used to seeing authors posting about how they spent $50-60 to promote on one of these types of sites for a day and how they only made $10 from it. There's no way to cut that so that it's good for you as the author. Don't be roped in by promises of increasing your visibility or broadening your reader base if your just feeding someone else's thirst for free money. At that point, you may as well be working with a vanity press.

Remember, the money should flow to the author, not from the author.