Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Toe Up to 10K wins Gold Medal in 2015 Reader's Favorite Book Awards
My book on my journey of recovery from spinal cord injury, Toe Up to 10K, has won a Gold Medal in the 2015 Reader's Favorite Book Awards.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Alternate dimensions and alternate universes
Recently, I came across an article on a theory which stated that there are alternate universes and they all interact which each other, and that because some actions were different at some point, things turned out differently.
I think the article stated that such theories have been around since the 1950's.
I first came across this in the comic book world. - DC comics having re-did all their Golden Age heroes into the Silver Age, decided to have them enter each other's universe. In the DC Universe, this became known as Earth-1 and Earth-2. Although stories almost always revolved around the interaction between Earth-1 and Earth-2, there was Earth-3, Earth-4, and so on, and actually an infinite number of Earths, out of which came a mini-series, "Crisis on Infinite Earths."
In some of these worlds, the same person would be the same hero - Clark Kent was Superman for both Earths, but Jay Garrick is the Flash in Earth-1, while Barry Allen is Flash in Earth-2. Everything was a little bit different.
Although I don't (didn't) watch these show, I think Dr. Who and the 90's tv show Sliders, also are plays on the alternate universe theory.
I can't remember where I read this, and I think the subject was dimensions, but I have come to apply it as the way I understand universes and dimensions: Within a dimension, there are an infinite number of universes. Visually, a dimension is like a hotel. Each room in a hotel is a separate universe. The rooms don't interact with other, but sometimes they do - maybe the door might be open between connecting rooms; maybe the guests in one room visit guests in another room. So, they are separate, but there is a chance that a visitor from one universe may enter another universe - like Earth-1 and Earth-2.
If each hotel room is a separate universe within a dimension, then each dimension is a separate hotel. And separate hotels would have different rules. It would be a little bit harder for interactions to take place - after all, guests in one hotel would rarely walk into another hotel (except in Las Vegas, and other gambling jurisdictions - but that would be the casino, restaurants, etc - not the hotel part). But sometimes one party might decide to stay in different hotels, thus visit each other. This is kind of the way I see the supernatural - and actually, the show, Twilight Zone played on this thought. On that show, it was the dimension of imagination and shadows.
But what if ghosts, angels and demons were entities from another dimension that found their way into our dimension, and within a certain space in our dimension, use the rules of their own dimension. I think I read this in the same place, but the author's point was that someone from a 2-D world could never comprehend a 3-D world, just like we couldn't comprehend a 4-D world. I'll just add to this and offer, what if we entered a 2-D world and were able to use the rules of the 3-D world. We might be seen as demons or Angels in their dimension.
As I wrote this, I was trying to figure out what book my ideas came from (how accurately or well I understood those concepts in that book are another story). But I found the book, it is titled, Warped Passages, by Lisa Randall, who is a renowned physicist.
Interesting stuff, especially for writers.
I think the article stated that such theories have been around since the 1950's.
I first came across this in the comic book world. - DC comics having re-did all their Golden Age heroes into the Silver Age, decided to have them enter each other's universe. In the DC Universe, this became known as Earth-1 and Earth-2. Although stories almost always revolved around the interaction between Earth-1 and Earth-2, there was Earth-3, Earth-4, and so on, and actually an infinite number of Earths, out of which came a mini-series, "Crisis on Infinite Earths."
In some of these worlds, the same person would be the same hero - Clark Kent was Superman for both Earths, but Jay Garrick is the Flash in Earth-1, while Barry Allen is Flash in Earth-2. Everything was a little bit different.
Although I don't (didn't) watch these show, I think Dr. Who and the 90's tv show Sliders, also are plays on the alternate universe theory.
I can't remember where I read this, and I think the subject was dimensions, but I have come to apply it as the way I understand universes and dimensions: Within a dimension, there are an infinite number of universes. Visually, a dimension is like a hotel. Each room in a hotel is a separate universe. The rooms don't interact with other, but sometimes they do - maybe the door might be open between connecting rooms; maybe the guests in one room visit guests in another room. So, they are separate, but there is a chance that a visitor from one universe may enter another universe - like Earth-1 and Earth-2.
If each hotel room is a separate universe within a dimension, then each dimension is a separate hotel. And separate hotels would have different rules. It would be a little bit harder for interactions to take place - after all, guests in one hotel would rarely walk into another hotel (except in Las Vegas, and other gambling jurisdictions - but that would be the casino, restaurants, etc - not the hotel part). But sometimes one party might decide to stay in different hotels, thus visit each other. This is kind of the way I see the supernatural - and actually, the show, Twilight Zone played on this thought. On that show, it was the dimension of imagination and shadows.
But what if ghosts, angels and demons were entities from another dimension that found their way into our dimension, and within a certain space in our dimension, use the rules of their own dimension. I think I read this in the same place, but the author's point was that someone from a 2-D world could never comprehend a 3-D world, just like we couldn't comprehend a 4-D world. I'll just add to this and offer, what if we entered a 2-D world and were able to use the rules of the 3-D world. We might be seen as demons or Angels in their dimension.
As I wrote this, I was trying to figure out what book my ideas came from (how accurately or well I understood those concepts in that book are another story). But I found the book, it is titled, Warped Passages, by Lisa Randall, who is a renowned physicist.
Interesting stuff, especially for writers.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Stretching a Thought, But is There a Ghostly orb in this photo?
I decided to scan an old photo of myself for a ThrowBack Thursday posting. However, my scanner would scan in black and white, and something on the photo caught my eye.
I had always noticed in in the original color photo, but it is distinctive on the scanned black and white.
The photo is from 1989 taken with a film camera.
There is a white streak next to me, and if you follow that streak, both ways, it starts at the ceiling, and the ends with a white dot at the top right corner of the window. I had always thought that dot was a street light, or the moon, but now that I look at the photo, I think the dot is indoors. I can't tell whether the blinds are up or down -the flash from the camera is reflected, which I take as an indication that the blinds were still up. These aren't the metal blinds, but they were wood blinds, so I don't think they would reflect as well.
I had always thought the streak next to me was a scratch. But would a scratch have such a distinctive route? Then I thought it was the camera moving. But if that were so, there should be other streaks. For instance, the light indicator on the smoke detector above the door. That is a green light, and if the camera moved, there should be a streak there also. There are other white dots in the photo, but i think those are just scratches off the original photo.
I used to watch those ghost hunting shows, and they would talk about orbs a lot. Orbs look like dust particles, but instead of randomly floating around, they would have a "route." And it seems that this streak has a route.
I'm not a professional photographer, so I don't know what other explanations there would be other than a scratch on the lens or the camera moving.
But it is fun to speculate that my friend who took my picture many years back also caught a ghostly streak coming out of my ceiling and going into my bedroom.
With that, I present a Throwback Thursday photo one day early.
I had always noticed in in the original color photo, but it is distinctive on the scanned black and white.
The photo is from 1989 taken with a film camera.
There is a white streak next to me, and if you follow that streak, both ways, it starts at the ceiling, and the ends with a white dot at the top right corner of the window. I had always thought that dot was a street light, or the moon, but now that I look at the photo, I think the dot is indoors. I can't tell whether the blinds are up or down -the flash from the camera is reflected, which I take as an indication that the blinds were still up. These aren't the metal blinds, but they were wood blinds, so I don't think they would reflect as well.
I had always thought the streak next to me was a scratch. But would a scratch have such a distinctive route? Then I thought it was the camera moving. But if that were so, there should be other streaks. For instance, the light indicator on the smoke detector above the door. That is a green light, and if the camera moved, there should be a streak there also. There are other white dots in the photo, but i think those are just scratches off the original photo.
I used to watch those ghost hunting shows, and they would talk about orbs a lot. Orbs look like dust particles, but instead of randomly floating around, they would have a "route." And it seems that this streak has a route.
I'm not a professional photographer, so I don't know what other explanations there would be other than a scratch on the lens or the camera moving.
But it is fun to speculate that my friend who took my picture many years back also caught a ghostly streak coming out of my ceiling and going into my bedroom.
With that, I present a Throwback Thursday photo one day early.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Back to Tony Robbins
Over the weekend I decided to put in a cassette tape of one of Anthony Robbins programs which 1/2 the session consists of his topic and half consists of an interview he conducts with a self-help type of person. I'm only two tapes in and he has spoken with Ken Blanchard of One Minute Manager and Charles Givens, the late personal finance guru. OK, so Givens has a less than desirable reputation to some people, but I never really understood the Florida fraud case in which he was sued for, and ultimately settled.
Just to go of tangent a little, from what I understand, he was sued for fraud because he advocated dropping whole life insurance in favor of term life insurance - and the deceased had cancelled his whole life insurance and he died before enrolling in term life insurance. And this is fraud?
It's just advice. Whether it is Ken Blanchard talking about corporate management, Charles givens talking about money management, or Tony Robbins talking about being positive - it's all just advice. It's up to the recipient to process that advice and act or not act on it, and the manner to which to act.
Anyway, back to the Tony Robbins talks. When I was a teen-ager, I read Jose Silva's The Silva Mind Control Method, Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, and a bunch of other self-help books. I jumped on the Anthony Robbins bandwagon in the early 1990's.
As I got further and further into my career, I continued to think positively and all, but I stopped reading and listening to these motivational speakers on a regular basis, and when i did, I would just do so on a shallow level.
In 2012, I came down with meningitis, which almost killed me, and left me a paraplegic for a few months. I'm still recovering, and over the last 2 years, I've periodically re-read self help books such as Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, and others, but with the same shallowness I had before my injury.
But last weekend, I put in the Tony Robbins tape, and something clicked. As much as I try to maintain a positive outlook, I realized that being positive often needs tweaking, and listening to these tapes motivates me to tweak out the negatives that do build up and focus on the positives.
Sometimes they are referenced as coaches. But they aren't, really. You have to follow a coaches' order or get benched. These are just advisors, or consultants. You listen to them, and its up to you to take their advice, but their value is that they either bring a perspective that you hadn't thought of before, or they remind you of a perspective you once had on a subject and move you towards re-considering that perspective.
Just to go of tangent a little, from what I understand, he was sued for fraud because he advocated dropping whole life insurance in favor of term life insurance - and the deceased had cancelled his whole life insurance and he died before enrolling in term life insurance. And this is fraud?
It's just advice. Whether it is Ken Blanchard talking about corporate management, Charles givens talking about money management, or Tony Robbins talking about being positive - it's all just advice. It's up to the recipient to process that advice and act or not act on it, and the manner to which to act.
Anyway, back to the Tony Robbins talks. When I was a teen-ager, I read Jose Silva's The Silva Mind Control Method, Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, and a bunch of other self-help books. I jumped on the Anthony Robbins bandwagon in the early 1990's.
As I got further and further into my career, I continued to think positively and all, but I stopped reading and listening to these motivational speakers on a regular basis, and when i did, I would just do so on a shallow level.
In 2012, I came down with meningitis, which almost killed me, and left me a paraplegic for a few months. I'm still recovering, and over the last 2 years, I've periodically re-read self help books such as Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, and others, but with the same shallowness I had before my injury.
But last weekend, I put in the Tony Robbins tape, and something clicked. As much as I try to maintain a positive outlook, I realized that being positive often needs tweaking, and listening to these tapes motivates me to tweak out the negatives that do build up and focus on the positives.
Sometimes they are referenced as coaches. But they aren't, really. You have to follow a coaches' order or get benched. These are just advisors, or consultants. You listen to them, and its up to you to take their advice, but their value is that they either bring a perspective that you hadn't thought of before, or they remind you of a perspective you once had on a subject and move you towards re-considering that perspective.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Created an Author Page on Facebook
I tried to do this years ago, but author wasn't one of the choices. And although "author" pages have been an option for a couple of years now, I just got around creating one.
Steven Fujita page on Facebook
Steven Fujita page on Facebook
Thursday, January 8, 2015
My 2015 Writing Projects
After devoting a lot of time to recovering from my spinal cord injury for the last 2 1/2 years, I am hoping to get back into fiction writing.
So, I am hoping this is the year I publish both the prequel and sequel to my first book, Sword of the Undead. My plan is to publish a three-in-one book, call it Samurai Vampire: The Trilogy. It will be 3 novella length stories. Book 1 will result in the first meeting between Yagyu Jubei and Lord Kageura. Book 2 will be Sword of the Undead, and Book 3 will be the modern day meeting between the 2 samurai.
My second fiction book I am hoping to write, but probably won't be finished this year, is a fictional account of my recovery from spinal cord injury. In my non-fiction book, Toe Up to 10K, I leave a lot of emotions out, and that book is really more of a "this is what happens when your spinal cord gets injured, and this is what I did to help my body overcome as much as it could." The book is a personal perspective, but I didn't devote any real time to inter-personal relationships.
A third book that I would like to complete this year, but may or may not be published is a sequel to Toe Up to 10K. I think this is the year that my body will be strong enough to run a 10K. Since I am injured at the T4 level, I am prone to an uncommon, but serious and potentially fatal condition when the body is physically overstressed, called AD (can't remember what it stands for). I need to be aware of that. That said, the sequel will cover my improvements since Fall, 2014 to present, and my journey and entry into a 5K or 10K race,
So, Happy New Year and Happy reading in 2015, everybody!
So, I am hoping this is the year I publish both the prequel and sequel to my first book, Sword of the Undead. My plan is to publish a three-in-one book, call it Samurai Vampire: The Trilogy. It will be 3 novella length stories. Book 1 will result in the first meeting between Yagyu Jubei and Lord Kageura. Book 2 will be Sword of the Undead, and Book 3 will be the modern day meeting between the 2 samurai.
My second fiction book I am hoping to write, but probably won't be finished this year, is a fictional account of my recovery from spinal cord injury. In my non-fiction book, Toe Up to 10K, I leave a lot of emotions out, and that book is really more of a "this is what happens when your spinal cord gets injured, and this is what I did to help my body overcome as much as it could." The book is a personal perspective, but I didn't devote any real time to inter-personal relationships.
A third book that I would like to complete this year, but may or may not be published is a sequel to Toe Up to 10K. I think this is the year that my body will be strong enough to run a 10K. Since I am injured at the T4 level, I am prone to an uncommon, but serious and potentially fatal condition when the body is physically overstressed, called AD (can't remember what it stands for). I need to be aware of that. That said, the sequel will cover my improvements since Fall, 2014 to present, and my journey and entry into a 5K or 10K race,
So, Happy New Year and Happy reading in 2015, everybody!
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