First, I know that the title isn't the most inspiring or original, but this is a concept that I had in mind after playing the original Zelda back when I was in high school.  I drew up a few maps and slowly added gameplay changes over the years.  It wouldn't be until my sophomore year in college, after playing Betrayal at Krondor, that this game idea fully cemented in my mind.  Sadly, it hasn't moved much from that point. 

Second, this is more of a video game idea than a story idea, but the story part of the of game is where I got stuck.  This concept is one of those where I might have over-thought myself.  Basically, I wanted to create a game that encouraged multiple (I mean sixteen) plays, each with a different view of the game and the story.

The gameplay is like Zelda, a top-down exploration/adventure fantasy game.  The player starts with a standard main character.  Originally, I was in high school when I designed this, all of the characters were male.  Were I to start work on the game today, the first character would be a female knight looking to prove herself and save the world.  As I was stuck on the stereotype, her village is destroyed and her secret heritage is given to her.  She is told to seek out other heroes to help her save the world.

The Knight goes through her section of the world, following whichever storyline the player chooses.  She has basic sword-wielding attacks, her sword takes on different powers, and she can deflect with a shield.  Depending on which direction the Knight goes, a second character is met.  The three other characters are a Wizard who is trying to recapture a demon he accidentally loosed on the world, a Ninja (it was the early nineties) who is trying to restore his (her) clan's honor, and a Jester (who is my personal favorite) who wants to find a story worthy enough to bring him back into the good graces of his liege.  Each has unique special abilities, attacks, and stories.  The Wizard can hit things at long range, has fireball and lightning attacks (I was playing D&D based games on my computer), and can teleport short distances.  The Ninja has fast, close attacks, can climb, and can turn himself (herself?) invisible.  The Jester somersaults everywhere, throws his juggling balls as weapons (that bounce off enemies and walls to appear back in his hands), and can send everyone (friend and foe alike) into paralyzing laughing fits.

The player can only play one character at a time.  This makes it so each character opens up new means of exploration and new ways of dealing with encounters.  The lame story explanation is that their essences are all held in a crystal which only allows out one at a time.  Yet, somehow, in story sequences, they would all be there.  I still haven't worked a better way out of it.  

The player completes each of the four main areas, bringing the each character's story to a completion, before arriving in a final end area where evil is defeated.  Pretty standard.

The twist is that once the game ends (or maybe because of how the story ends), the player gets to start the game again as any one of the four characters.  If the player chooses the Knight again, the first part stays the same, but the story changes depending on which character the player goes for next.  For example, let's say that Knight first teamed up with the Ninja and then the Wizard, but on the next play-through went for the Wizard first and then the Ninja.  The Ninja's story would be at a different place because he (she?) had to face his (her?) Act 2 choices without the help of the Knight.  Meanwhile, the Wizard's situation would not have been as dire.

But the player doesn't have to start as the Knight.  Depending on the character chosen to start with, the game takes a different tone.  Whichever one chosen first is the "hero" of the story.  In fact, after playing The Bard's Tale, Bastion, and The Stanley Parable, I thought that having a narrator (in this case a different narrator for each character) might be a nice addition.  This makes the Ninja's tale more mysterious, the Wizard's tale more magical, and Jester's tale much more comical.  However, whichever character is added last has the most tragic story.

I even thought of adding a fifth character (a dark archer searching for redemption) while still keeping the game to only four acts and a finale.  This way, one character is forever lost, but the added level of complexity, not to mention macabre, might be a bit too much.  As is, the game basically needs sixteen different plot lines depending on who is the "hero" and the order that the characters are chosen.  I would not want any of the endings to be the "correct" ending; players should feel both satisfied with any ending they get as well as curious about how everything might change were things slightly different.

And that's where I got stuck.  I haven't really plotted anything out as the concept would take a great deal of time to etch out and I don't have the programming know-how to make the game a reality.  Still, I like the concept; although, I would like a better title.

I'm afraid of my heart.  I was in 4th grade, I think, when our school put on a healthy heart program that encouraged us to eat properly and exercise (spell "aerobic") in order to keep our hearts healthy.  Like the talking tooth mascot for proper dental hygiene, this mascot was a heart in Tom Selleck gym shorts.  While that image alone should be enough to terrify me, it was something said during one of these visits that really caused me concern.

Our hearts can only beat a billion times.  Now that I can conceptualize a billion better, this is not as horrifying of a statistic as it was when I was ten.  The presenter was trying to emphasize the need for people to have healthy hearts which don't need to beat as often, keeping a lower pulse when active or at rest.   For me, it was like someone had put a countdown over my head.  I could feel every beat of my heart and I even panicked that when I tried to slow it down, it only seemed to speed up.

My grandfather died of a heart attack at a relatively young age--one of the reasons I will never smoke a cigarette.  I knew that it was a constant concern of my father, who had been fatherless since the age of thirteen.  As I have gotten older, it has become more of a concern for me as well.  When I was told that I couldn't give blood because my blood pressure was too high ... well ..., my blood pressure got higher.

Last night, having just finished a rather exhilarating match of Starcraft, I lay in bed unable to sleep due to the pounding of my heart.  Again, attempts to slow it only seemed to make it beat faster.  I could hear the presenter warn about a billion beats being our heart's upper limit.  I thought about the medications that they put people on for high blood pressure and the medications they then put people on to counteract the first set of medicine's side affects.

I need to listen to my heart.  I need to get healthier.  

Unfortunately, there is not much to report.  I stayed home from work today and spent almost the entire day fitfully sleeping.  

Strangely, aside from the aches, sinus pressure, and overall tiredness, there is something kind of comfortable about spending a day sick in bed.  It's as though my body is trying to catch up on all of the sleep that I've missed this semester.  My dreams, those I remember, have been largely pleasant and soothing, the kind of dreams that lull you back to sleep.

This virus has really flattened me out.  I am not going in to work tomorrow either.  Unfortunately, missing my job means that there will be a lot to catch up on when I return.  Hopefully, these couple of days will get me back on my feet and ready to go.

While my intention is to write everyday, yesterday I cut the blog short due to how tired I was feeling.  Today, I know why.  The cold which seems to have struck nearly everyone around me got to me this morning.  I woke up with a sore spot on the back of my throat.  Knowing everyone else's experience, I took a Zicam (which has proven effective for me) before going to work.

As the day wore on, my throat got worse and worse to the point that I couldn't raise my voice to my students (it turns out slapping a clipboard on a table catching people's attention).  I went to Trevor's last concert (the Northwest Junior High Spring Collage Concert) and found myself with the sniffles.  Two hours later, my snot has turned to pea-soup color and consistency.

I now have the full-blown sinus headache and plan on heading to bed right when I finish this post.  Tomorrow is a light day at school for me, but my AP students have their test so I want to be there in case there are any hiccups (and to hear the accounts of their experiences).

I hate feeling sick in the spring or summer.  I hope I'm more energetic tomorrow for Katrina's birthday.

While thinking about what I wanted to write about tonight, I found myself not wanting to write about anything.  I had about three topics that I had mentally crafted at least a middle, if not a beginning or an end, but I don't have the energy right now to write about the problems associated with voluntarily having cameras on everything, about miraculous events in my life which make me believe in God, or about how losing a screw to my glasses made me more conscious about my dependence on my sight.

The truth is that I need more sleep and this blog has been interfering with that a bit.  I hope you'll excuse me, but I'm going to head to bed.  Hopefully, I will write on one of the above topics later.  

Thunder rumbled during the school day today, but I didn't give it much thought.  The truth is that I love thunderstorms; although, I suppose that's a post for another day.  Today, the buses were safely away (at least for the middle and high schools) before the warnings of tornado sightings started to come in.

I was in an after school meeting as the rain began to sheet down.  While I love being in a car while rain is pouring down, I don't really care for driving in it, especially considering that it's around an hour to get to home in good weather.  The meeting adjourned a little before four and I went to leave.  There were two tornado warnings for our area as well as a severe thunderstorm warning and a special weather statement.

I went to the exit closest to where my car was parked and found the hallway full of students.  They were all near the windows (no announcement had been given about the warnings) watching the rain and the flooded parking lot.  There was my car, water up to the side panels.  All I could think of was going home.  Like another teacher just ahead of me, I walked into the parking lot towards my car rather than running.  The students behind me were cheering in that tone reserved for daredevils.  Their cheers turned to comments of astonishment as the water went over my ankles.  Their astonishment sounded more like disgust when I got into my car, removed my shoes, and poured the water out from them into the parking lot.

I was not a good role-model.  I just wanted to go home.  The meeting had taken long enough.  Waiting for the tornado warnings to end would have meant another hour.  Who knows how long the parking lot would take to drain.  Now, I had looked at the weather maps and was willing to take the risk that I did considering the warnings, but I had given an example to all of those students who were watching and cheering that might not serve them well in the future.

Had the school made an announcement, I probably would have stayed.  In retrospect, I should have both stayed and escorted the students to a safer location.  But all I could think of was getting home and how I didn't want to be stuck in the building for another couple of hours.  

I try to teach critical thinking skills to my students, but it turns out that I don't practice what I preach.

While many of my personality traits can be traced directly to my father, I know that many others are from my mother.  My devotion to Christianity is one of the traits that I know comes from here.  My father is a practicing Catholic, but my mother takes her faith to a higher degree, a degree which I am sometimes embarrassed by and sometime envious of.  In truth, following the faith of my mother makes me more a part of the average population than if I didn't.  While children usually benefit from having both parents as a part of their upbringing, it is the faith and love of the mother that most children hold on to through their adulthood. 

This is not a new phenomenon.  Even Emperor Constantine  followed the religious path of his mother despite the fact that doing so decreased the power of the cult of the emperor.  Because of her faith, an entire empire and the course of history changed.  

As our mothers give us life, it only makes sense that we turn to them for questions about existence both in this world and the next.  Despite the fact that many religions show their gods as father figures, it is the mercy of the mother that we seek.  For Catholics, this explains the devotion to Mary as the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven and Earth.  She is the ultimate mother figure, one devoted to her child through His life, His death, and His resurrection.  

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there, and thanks to those who have provided their children with the guidance and love needed to become caring and loving people. 

During the seventh grade, I wrote a script for a science fiction movie that I wanted my friends and I to act out on piece of property that my parents owned on Henry road.  My plan was to convince parents to build a fort on one part of the property and a small town on another piece.  Boy's Life had advertisements for plans that showed how to make a hovercraft using light wooden frame and a vacuum cleaner.  It was said to hold up to 200 pounds.  By my middle school reasoning, I could make a much larger, ship-like hovercraft with ten vacuum cleaners (as long as the ship itself weighed less than a ton).  With these working props, I would be able to convince the kids at my school to join me in making a fantastic movie.  Thus I wrote a story which had characters that I hoped my fellow students would want to play.  Even the "bad guy" parts were written for people I knew who wanted (some even agreed to) playing the roles of the villains.

As I wrote my script, I came to realize that the props and sets I had planned would not work.  For example, the fort I wanted to build would need multiple floors and corridors that would take up a much larger area than what the clearing I had planned to put it in would allow.  Still, I finished the story anyway, and showed it to the other students at lunch as well as my English teacher.  I was quite a hit.  Even my friends liked it.  Granted, I gave them all heroic roles and, in the end, they all had super powers.  My teacher was also impressed and spoke with my mother about my potential.

I don't know what happened to that script.  However, elements of the story have still rattled around in my thoughts and day dreams.  When I read portions of the Iliad in the tenth grade, I was struck by some of the similarities between my hero (which was my role, of course) and Achilles's situation.  Both were reluctant to fight because of a girl until a friend (who attempts to take the hero's place) is killed in battle.  I must have heard some part of the story before the seventh grade.  Rather than be depressed that I had created something unoriginal, I embraced the idea of writing a futuristic retelling of an ancient story.  I then started several aborted attempts to write that story, but it kept coming up false.

There were several elements that I wanted to keep.  In my script, the heroes had super powers because they were aliens who looked like humans (or the children of aliens).  I have an opening scene of a group of rebels running away from a group of soldiers with explosions behind them.  I developed an idea that the hero had been away from the planet (which I decided was a post-apocalyptic Earth) fighting a war, and that due to relativistic speeds was returning to a world where everyone he had know was dead.  I also created a concept where the love of his life, required her daughters and then granddaughters to swear that one of them would be there for him on his return, an idea he doesn't know about.  By the time he arrives, it's her great-great-granddaughter who wants nothing to do with the idea, but is convinced by the rebel leader to use this connection to get the war hero on their side.

I also have the idea of writing about the hero's experiences before he joins the rebels and wins independence for Earth.  But then a friend of mine gave me a book that basically tells the story I wanted to write: of the people of Earth being the outcasts of a larger inter-species galactic war, but whose abilities start to set them apart.

These are ideas that I keep coming back to when I think about writing more fiction.  Without the original script, I really don't know how much the story has evolved.  However, I don't think I'll use the superpowers idea.

It was in my high school American Literature class that I first heard about the idea of keeping a writing journal.  We were learning about Nathaniel Hawthorne who, along with writing the obligatory novel The Scarlet Letter and being considered one of the fathers of the short story, kept a journal of his various story ideas.  Our teacher encouraged us to do something similar for extra credit.

As a junior in high school who already found myself to be a failed journal writer, I thought this would be my gift to posterity.  I found an old, orange three-ring binder with dividers already inside.  I used the dividers to create several sections: one for poetry (which I hardly touched), one for short stories (where I think I only wrote one ... about a clock maker), one for story ideas (where I think I merely repeated earlier ideas), and one for writing about my day-to-day life.  I wrote in it a bit for the first month (we were to turn it in every week), but then started to neglect it as I do with most journals.

Since then, I have read several articles and books about writing that suggest keeping a writing journal for story ideas, characters, settings, and any other thoughts that come to mind.  The consensus is that if we don't write at least something down when we are thinking about it, we might forget it entirely.  With that in mind, I started two other such journals.  One is a black bound book which contains not just a few stories from my college years, but also a few attempts to draw.  The second sits on the stand near my bed and serves more as a dream diary now.  I like reading back through that one as there are some interesting ideas in its pages.

As I am continuing to write this blog on a daily basis, I hope that I care reignite my motivation for more substantial writing.  Perhaps my writing journals will come in handy after all.

While I hold many controversial opinions, there is one that I truly believe should be enacted as an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  It does what I feel the 26th Amendment should have done in the first place, what the 15th and 19th technically include, and what I believe the 14th (section 1) technically covers.  I believe that all citizens of the U.S., no matter their age, should have the right to vote.

Yes, even infants.  Obviously, the legal parent or guardian of the child would have the right to help the child in the voting process until the child is capable of do so without such aid.  Still, many of the decisions that are made today directly affect the future of our children, yet those children have no voice in those decisions.  Because they do not have the ability to vote, politicians largely disregard policies that would directly benefit children, and instead focus on helping those in a significantly aging population.

Who better to vote on issues of school bonds, social security, the environment, foster care systems, the deficit, etc. than those citizens who are either directly impacted or who will have to foot the bill?  Sure, government officials claim to be acting in the best interests of children, but without having to court their votes, all that is given is lip service.

To those who claim that children are not ready for this responsibility, that they will be too easily manipulated by people who do not have their best interests at heart, or that they will simply vote the way they are told by their superiors, I would like to remind you that the same arguments were given when newly freed slaves, and later women, were wanting their voices to be heard.  I will also add that all of those arguments are true for any human being.  I know of many adults who are not informed enough to vote, as well as many adolescents who nearly have the capability to run a country (as many children have done throughout the history of the world).

Every citizen deserves the right to help shape the course of our nation.  This is a democratic republic.  It works best when all of our voices can be heard.

We're watching the movie Bandits at the request of my oldest daughter.  Cate Blanchett, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bruce Willis form an unlikely group of bank robbers who sleep over at a bank manager's house the night before they rob the bank.  It is a well-constructed, if highly convoluted, movie that makes me laugh out loud at least every minute.

It's worth watching if you haven't seen it.  If you have seen it, it's worth watching again.

Tomorrow, they are giving us ice cream.  We took a pay freeze (again and for the next three years), we took a pay cut (for the next three years), we have to pay substantially more for our healthcare, we have to contribute even more to our retirement to receive the full benefits, we have to pay a percentage of our salary to our retirement healthcare, we are vilified by politicians, we continually have more paperwork to fill out, and we are blamed for the downfall of education and our society.  You are going to think that I'm being sarcastic, but I have a great job, and they're giving me ice cream tomorrow.

Today has been one of my best teacher appreciation days ever.  I've had a rather rough week in how I've felt about my job.  My evaluation for my evening job was not stellar and several complaints about me, my teaching style, and my humor have been made.  I know I can do better as a teacher, even as exhausted as I've been, so these complaints hit kind of hard.  But today ... today I had two fantastic reminders about why I love my job.  Both were from students, one in a current class, and one from my first year teaching.

I am not certain how much I can reveal about either on such a public site, but their words illuminated the darkening regions of my mind and reminded me again the paradise that is right in front of me.  I might not be the best teacher in the world (or even the hallway of my school), but I have had the opportunity to work with the future, with talented and amazing students who are growing and have grown into wonderful human beings.  That I have been even the smallest part of their lives is the greatest honor I have received.  And I would like to thank all of those teachers who have, in turn, inspired me.

This cycle of giving, of creating, and of inspiring is what makes my job truly special.  That, and the fact that they are giving us ice cream tomorrow.

Rowen has his birthday tomorrow.  Somehow, he will already be four years old.  Time has flown too fast.  Wasn't he just learning to walk the other day?  How can he already be four?

He wants a Superman birthday party.  He jumps around the house, shooting imaginary webs while claiming that he's Ultimate Spider-man.  He stalks the corners saying that he's Batman.  He throws amazing temper tantrums when upset, and finds his face when he's embarrassed.  He loves to give hugs and fight with his brothers.

I vaguely remember being four, playing with the neighbor children, wondering when I would go to school.  I remember watching PBS shows like Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood (and being banned from watching the Electric Company because it made me too wild).  I remember watching Star Wars in the theater and wanting to be Luke Skywalker.

Rowen is just now entering into the realm of retrievable memory.  He is starting to understand the world and himself.  He will start to remember his birthdays, his goals, and his dreams.  He's no longer the baby.  How can he already be four?

Today's Gospel reading is one of my favorites: The Road to Emmaus.  Father Jim had a great sermon about his own experience on a road to Emmaus.  As was pointed out to us in today's sermon, the story is the basis for the structure of our mass: there is an Introductory Rite when the two disciples meet Jesus on the road, there is a Liturgy of the Word as Jesus (who is still unrecognized) explains how the prophets predicted His death and resurrection, there is a Liturgy of the Eucharist as Jesus breaks the bread and is revealed, and there is a Concluding Rite as the disciples run back to Jerusalem to tell the others what they had witnessed.

It's just a good story.  These two men are leaving the city, possibly to escape persecution, after having their lives torn apart.  They come across a stranger who asks about their troubles and then shows them the why they should not be afraid.  They invite Him to share their dinner.  He blesses the bread and breaks it, handing it out to them, and suddenly they recognize Him.  At which point, He vanishes.  No flash of light, no puff of smoke, just gone.

At this point they say to each other one of my favorite lines: "Were not our hearts burning within us?"  They had been so set on their problems and anxieties that not only did they not recognize Jesus when He appeared to them, but their minds did not register what their hearts were telling them.  How often do we block out our own hearts due to the troubles on our minds?

I can't help but wonder how they didn't recognize Him at first.  Rather than being upset with them, He seemed to be amused.  I have heard sermons that have suggested that this lack of recognition is likened to our lack of recognizing Christ in one another.  I like that, but a part of me wonders if He had simply shaved.  Perhaps He looked too regal, as He was on the road quite a bit during His ministry.  They were used to seeing, for lack of a better term, Hippy Jesus rather than Jesus the King of Heaven and Earth.

Whatever the reasons they had for leaving the city, they run back to it.  This might be my favorite part.  They can't wait to share what they had seen.  As they arrive they that find others (Peter in particular) who had also encountered Jesus.  There is no jealousy about this fact.  Instead, they celebrate together.

I would like to have more of that zeal within me.