vincentclark dot com

^{first draft}
I remember getting angry one day and yelling at my friends that they did not know what I know. I don’t mean to sound pompous, but really, all that I know, I don’t think that most people really want to know it.

Personally, I think most peoples heads would pop. Everything from corporate America, to technology, to the politics of America and the world both beyond and within, the insight I have really should in large part be kept to myself.

Someday’s I feel like finding the person in charge and tell them what is really going on, mostly because I want to see if I am right. But I don’t. Not because I fear being wrong, but that their head might pop. Then I would naturally feel responsible.

That would be nice if that was true, but to be straight with you, I don’t think their head would literally pop, I know that they would trust their vantage point over mind. I remember when I was a camp counselor one of the campers looked at the mountain and told how she didn’t see the mountain, but the rocks, and the bugs under the rocks, the fallen leaves and all the little things that made up the the big.

Too often we are distracted by our vantage point. Our points of view, and too often that clouds what the real big picture is, or rather the larger picture. Every universe is composed of galaxies, and solar systems, planets and habitats all composed of molecules made from protons, electrons, protons, and quarks, at the same moment the quarks that make the protons and neutrons, the electrons and the molecules are used to make up the habitats that exist inside the planets of the solar systems, contained within a galaxy organized into a universe. All bound together by with some variance of time.

We live in a world that isn’t constant and that will not make sense no matter how hard we try to make sense of it. How many times do we trick ourselves in stopping here? Resigning to the fact that none of this makes sense, so we find one thing and try to make sense of that. The unfortunate things is that when those two notations are merged an abstract portrait of reality is spread across the heavens for all to see comprised those rocks and twigs we cannot see from a distance.

Do you really want to look at your companies news channel and notice pixelation in the logo? Do you want to know that the image used for the hi def broadcast was most likely copied from a letter head graphic. My guess is no you don’t, which is my point, you don’t want to know what I know, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. Do you want stair at a billboard by sprint and read the words, “better than three coats of sun tan.” Do you want to know how many clueless individuals had to ok such a large waste of money and know that their is someone that still thinks that the brain trust behind that slogon is a pretty smart lady? Or how good that billboard looks on the happless group of people that brain stormed for hours to think up such a mind numbingly offensive slogin?

There is a reality out there that is made to seem to complicated for us to understand, that it is so absurd the ones that fight the hardest for you to not to try to understand it understand it the least.

I would tell you more, but there is that hole head popping things. Two much reality in concentrated amounts is never advised.

By the way, thanks Alan John

Not often am I the one waiting in the waiting room, I am usually in the recovering room. My mom just had nasul surgery, so I took the day off to car for her. I counted 23 times prior to me dropping her off on how she could get someone else if I am being too “bothered” or if “it is too much to ask.” It is, but I am still her son so it is something that I have to do. It is important that someone does it, my sisters find more pressing reasons to journey out to California, and a mother’s surgery ranks low on the list. But I am here, broken spirit and all. This isn’t the best time for me to be taking time off from work, I am on thin ice as it is. The drive out here in my manual transmission death trap of a car hurt quite painfully. This was after having leaving work sick, which I know I will get in trouble for.

I am not sure if my procedure worked. This is where they went to shove long needle in to a nerve group next to my spine. They missed the first time. That hurt a lot, I mean a whole lot. Saturday I was feeling great, first time in a long time. Sunday the back pain was sitting in, and I got tired. I haven’t really quite felt wake since that Saturday. I am not sure if something is wrong, but I am pretty sure that something isn’t right.

I am waiting to hear back from two doctors, hopefully one of them will have something that we can work with, something more than numbing the nerves in alphabetical order. Even then, more tests, more blocks, more days out sick, less of career, less of a life. I really want to get out of this waiting room.

I know that the trip home is going to suck, and the road to recovery won’t be easy, I just want to get on it and out of this damn waiting room.

Living in California I would like to say that I am used to Earthquakes. I am not. They still scare the holy crap out of me. Even when the quake is small, I never know if it was close or far away, and worst, who might I know where the quake was the strongest. While the quake is going on you never know if this is the big one or will it get worse?

I still have overwhelming vivid memories of the Northridge Quake. Living in Simi Valley we were hit really hard. I remember my little sister running towards my room, I grabbed hand held her in the doorway telling her that I lover her and it will be ok. I heard things breaking around me and wasn’t sure if the house would come tumbling down upon us. That was the most afraid I had ever been, and the first time in my life I found myself up against something that I was not sure if I would survive.

My girlfriends neighborhood look like a war zone, and she wasn’t there. I remember at 5 am my father driving me across town to see if Amy was at her fathers. She was. I will never forget that drive, though I try hard to. It was the amount of dead dogs that I saw that I really have never got over. I am guessing when fences fell the dogs darted into the streets were hit by people that were driving to check on love ones after being awaken early on a holiday morning.

I will never forget the faces of the people waiting in line for water. It was around 4pm. We were all awaken by a collective bad dream. We had no communication will people outside of our neighborhood. It wasn’t until 8pm before the lights went on.

I would write more, but I try to remember only bits at a time.

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating Roslyn

^{an article from the VincentClark newsletter
first published July 18th, 2006}

I was thirteen years old that summer. It was a rough summer—my aunt was really sick; I didn’t know how sick until later. There was something odd going on and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. One day my father yelled at me and said I didn’t know what it was like to have a sister dying of cancer. For some reason, I thought there was still a chance and my dad was overreacting. Looking back, I should have known what was going on, but back then all I could do was use my imagination to search for one lasting piece of hope, something that would save her.

Those summer nights we would all lie under the stars and watch for shooting stars. We did this almost every night; it was really cool. I remember wishing on every shooting star I saw that my aunt would be okay. I never prayed or wished so hard for anything in my life, and that is true even today.

I thought of everything that I could, and when I say everything that I could, I had the capacity to think of a lot. I was putting all my energy into swimming. For some dorky reason, I wanted to win first place and give that as a gift to my aunt. I had wanted to go see her for a while, but it seemed like there was always something else in the way.

It was July 12, 1988, around 6:50 pm. I thought I had plenty of time. I was waiting for my mother to pick me up—she was late but I thought nothing of it. I was in one of my daydreams, a complex fantasy on how to save my aunt. It was the ultimate story; back then I didn’t know that things like that couldn’t come true. I really did believe, even at age thirteen. I saw nothing to ever persuade me otherwise.

My grandmother had passed away and a classmate in the third grade; that was the extent of my tragedies. My grandmother had been dying of Alzheimer’s disease for a long time. She was old and did what grandparents do. It hurt, but it was like instinct knowing that this sort of thing was to be expected. Our parents are supposed to live forever. My aunt Cathy—my uncle Bill’s wife, Clark and Anna’s mother—was like my mom too. From ages four to eight (silly to think that was only four years—I have known you for almost that long) she was like my mother. That was half of my life. She lived down the street and our families were very close. We were almost always together, friends, family, it was the best.

I moved away when I was eight years old. It was March when we moved. That summer, they lived down at the beach house with our family, Donna and the Nicholas family, the Falgetter’s, and whoever else stopped by. It was arguably the best summer in my life. My family was still very close to the Morey’s.

I was in the sixth grade (1986) when I found out that my aunt Cathy had a brain tumor—cancer—and they tore her up. Radiation, chemo, surgeries…she looked so horrible. It was so painful to watch, even if it was at a distance. Perhaps that is what made it so painful. I was on the sidelines, there for her, but nobody really understood or still understands what this was like for me.

Every night I prayed. I tried so hard. I remember the Christmas when I saw her last. She was ill, and it took everything she had to make it up to Bakersfield for this family dinner. Bill knew it was to be her last, and it wasn’t until years later that I understood what that look in her eye meant. It’s funny that I remember vividly when she said goodbye. How was I to know that she knew it would be the last, and she that she was really saying goodbye?

If I knew then, I would have trapped myself in that moment forever. I always thought that I had more time, another month or two—one more week and I will write that letter. My mom was forty-five minutes late. An old friend must have called—with my family, this was always something that was expected and never really bothered anyone. I didn’t notice the look on my mothers face. I was finishing up the chapter of my story and reliving the moments in which I was to discover the answer, only to find out it was too late. We were leaving the pool, traveling north on Stow Street when she told me. Typically, when my mother delivers bad news is there is a lot of preamble to the story. I knew what was coming and did my best not to listen.

There was a pause. Seeing my aunt again, the one thing that I was pushing for all summer, the only thing that I wanted to do, the only thing I was hoping for, wishing for, would never happen. Everything that was my life to that point was now too late. She had slipped into a coma and had been taken to the hospital. The doctors didn’t think that she was going to wake up. She would die soon. There was another pause.

Then a tidal wave of grief as my world collapsed on me. I felt all the pain that my mother felt, my sisters, my aunts and uncles, my uncle Bill, my cousins—they were more like siblings. This was happening. It overwhelmed me. I burst into tears and fell into my mother’s lap. I wanted so much for someone to wake me, to tell me that the last two years had all been a dream. It was the most powerless I had ever felt to that point in time. There were a few people I would have traded my life for in order to save theirs, but she was the only one I would give my soul for. As the tears streamed down my face and in my uncontrollable sobs, I watched all that I was looking forward to, all of where I saw my life going, disappear like the world you create in your dreams as you wake up.

What was once a vivid memory was then only a fragment of a thought, then nothing. I never felt so let down in my life. God had failed me. Shooting stars had failed me. My imagination and my stories were the only things that I had left, and I tried so hard to understand the one thing that was missing that was separating me from finding out how to save her. I still had time. My father went up to see her first, then my mother, leaving us at home. We would have only gotten in the way. I would have got in the way.

A sinking feeling of common sense was the only thing that prevented me from walking up there.

And every day since then, I have regretted not trying

That week I went mad; I would stand on my bed and cry at the top of my lungs. My dad was losing a sister, my mom a friend, and me so much more, but how was anyone to know that? I was one of sixteen nephews and nieces on one side of a large family. I was a cousin, a supporter. I was so lost, and to this day there is a piece of me that was never found—a piece of me searching for that one thing that will make sense of it all.

On July 18th, 1988, I was in that state between a good dream and the optimism of the day. It was the first time I had had a decent night’s sleep in a week. My mother woke me up and told me that my aunt had passed away. I already knew; my mind was in a place where it could see the obvious, the span of life and death. There were no complications, no thoughts of the future or the past. This was what was and I was at peace. As I gently woke up, a sense of closure was coming over me.

My room was by the door and I could hear the soft words of a family friend telling my sister what had happened. I was expecting her to find the calm feeling that I had. Finally, all the suffering was coming to an end. Then I heard her belt out a “No!” and begin to cry. It was at that moment that my world ended and the one I live in today began.

I have never been the same since. I will never forget how painful the July 19th was for us..how long that drive was to San Jose…how quiet we all were. All of us were in our own little worlds—everyone but me. There was no more world for me and I drifted in a void of reality. I didn’t understand how the sun could be out, why there were people on the road, how strangers were laughing like nothing had happened. To them, nothing had happened, but to me a world had ended; I never felt so alienated in my life.

It has been eighteen years since that day. I have tried so hard to prevent it from becoming a childhood memory. I have long since forgiven God; it was only five years of intense hatred and anger towards him. Today it seems trivial; it was more than half a lifetime ago. This world I am in today has been here longer than the world of before, but I keep the pain as real as I can. This was the one thing in my life I swore to never get over, to never forget, to never stop crying about. Some years are better than others. Some years I see it coming, sometimes it sneaks up on me, but every year is the same—a preservation of pain needing to be felt to assure me that she will never leave who I am. Sometimes people can see this glimmer of the old world in my eye. They ask me what is wrong and I say, “Nothing.” Every night when I say my prayers, I say goodnight. At the end of every prayer I speak a silent, “Say hi to my aunt Cathy.” There is no one alive today or will be born that can understand; they can try, and they can feel for me and try to put themselves in my spot, but nobody was there to hear what was said that evening on December 24th, 1987 when she told me goodbye. I am the only one, and that is my treasure.

It has been 20 years to the day since my Aunt Cathy passed. The loss still hurts me as much as it did last year, the year before when this newsletter was written, and every year since that day that forever changed me.  Though today I am incredibly sad I know that is a good thing.

I am not sure when I began to see the difference between good and evil. As a life long Star Wars fan my initial exposure to the two was the struggle between the light and dark side of the force. Until twenty minutes ago I could never fully understand why the dark side had the advantage.

While walking to my car I was wondering why evil always seem to have the underhand. Naturally my thoughts turned to the struggle between the Jedi and the Sith. I remember Yoda saying that the dark side was not more powerful, however, I was still lost to why the “good side” of the force was no match for the “dark side.”

My thoughts then drifted to more earthly representations of good and evil. I then had an epiphany, good offers restraint where as evil did not.

In a parallel illustration we will look at the approach two different forces of equal strength would take while attempting to take and maintain control of the city of Chicago.

The two forces will be representation of good and evil.¹The two forces are completely equal in strength. There is little doubt that the evil force could take control far quicker than that of the good force. The evil force would also spend far less energy and resources in maintain control of the city.

The advantage that evil has is that there is no restraint in evil, which is a classic separation between evil and good. Good would take into account the civilians of the city. Though good needs to take control of the city this should not come at the expense of the people that reside inside it. The good force needs to spend far more time in calculating its strikes as to not occur casualties of the cities inhabitants. When controlling the city the force would need to squash any uprisings. To address any uprising the evil force can oppress the citizens, make public examples in the form of torture or executions, and withholding vital necessities such as food and medicine. This is something that a good force could not do. Since the good force operates within the constraints of caring for the people as their own arbitrary executions are seen as an act of murder and deemed a war crime. Withholding food and medicine is seen as a human rights violation and therefor cannot be used as weponds in the struggle for control.

While good needs to prefect the aim of their weapons the evil force can focus on effectiveness. The side of good must adhere to internationally agreed upon rules which limits the type of weapons that are available for use. Deploying chemical weapons would be an ideal tactic in urban warfare, however, conflicts with the contraints of good. If the goal is to control the city and there is no need for the inhabitents of the city it would be far easier for the forces of evil to develop wepondry to exterminate the population than it would to develop wepons to spare the population.

“good is restraint”

A chief separation between good and evil is that good operates within the context of rules. While there is no pure good the same is true for pure evil.

[Read more →]

Is Vincent Clark, general secretary of the VincentClark network the much revered 5th and final Cylon in Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica? Has Ron Moore officially jumped the shark? Is this an X-Files ending to one of the greatest space operas of all time? The answer might shake the very foundation of your understanding of the internet and science fiction. Click here for the answer that you can’t find anywhere else.

Sunday afternoon after dealing with a massive headache all week my wife Jennifer took me to Los Angele’s Kaiser Sunset Urgent Care. After running the normal blood tests a horrified nurse came in and said that my liver functions were very abnormal and that they needed to take me to get a cat scan of my liver and brain. They told me that this might be serious and that they were going to call in a consul. Long story short the doctors found that my liver was failing and that the functions were over 100 times the amount that they should be. Never in my life have I had a feeling that I would not leave a hospital. I couldn’t help but think that out of all that I have done and gone through my end might be in this hospital because of liver failure. They were also concerned about a brain tumor as well, and figured that they should get that checked out as well.

I was finally admitted to my room fifteen hours after arriving I was going to be prodded, tested, scanned, and grilled to figure out why my liver is on strike, my hormone levels were uneven, and I had a splitting headache and brown urine. Not to give away the ending, but as always I make a miraculous recovery, stun the doctors, and still not a clear idea of what exactly is wrong with me. I will go more into this in my faith articles. This one is about what pulled me through.

Having a splitting headache I was taken to have an MRI of my brain. If you have ever need to have an MRI of the brain make sure that you are loaded up before they put you in that thing. Unfortunately this machine was available now, but no doctor to put me under, so I had to suck it up. I have a better description of the MRI that may be added latter. For now, just image thousands of pounds of copper and magnets whirl around your head with intermittent bangs against the side. You are encased in a tube with a plastic shield covering your face. You try to control your breathing, but the breath heats up the small space where you need to be. After thirty minutes I was ready to crack. The an image came into my had. It was a photo taken a few years ago of my now wife, standing with her Jen pose and tourist grin. I smiled. I tried not to laugh. I can see her in the goofy pictures that we take. In this hell of misery I found my self lost in her smiles, pouts, sticking her tounge out at me, shaking her but and exposing her arm pits in the ultimate act of defiance, “mister, mister.”

When it ended, I kind of wanted it to last a little longer.

I often get annoyed when I am done commenting on a post I am then told you need to register. It saddens me to have to impose that tactic on my sites. The world shouldn’t have to work this way, unfortunately it needs to. People who write spam software are the worst of the worst. They are the trashy people that make beautiful parks a place where you don’t want your children to go to. They are like those thugs that cripple the inner city and cause people to further withdraw from their surroundings. They are those people that would go into a “Christian Youth” chat room and constantly type, “I love Satan.” This handful of people pollute the Internet and forces us to constantly adapt to fend them off. While they are continuously finding new and clever ways to bypass spam filters we find that a large amount of our time and funding is spent on repelling these Internet mosquitoes.

I am taking a new approach. I am collecting IP addresses, monitoring key words, studying how this web trash does what they do, and I am going to go after them. Even if I can only reach a small number of those responsible for that, spammers are here by on noticed, that starting sometime soon the hunt will be on and they will not be safe. I intend to target them personally and on a very personal level. This will be the last warning. The time my be tomorrow or two years from now.

I know reading this post are not responsible. Spammers never read the area in which they target. It is software without guidance or a conscious. I do hope those reading this join the fight in tracking down those responsible for this and perhaps together we can put an end to this virtual abuse.

I don’t get it, I am watching Top Chef and I just don’t get it. My brain hurts, it seriously hurts, it is like watching a train wreck, or even better like how when your finger hurts you just keep pressing on it. I knew I had to pull away. I wanted to see the finish, but I knew that if I got to the ending I would be lost. Is this the end? Is this it, the best we can do? I can’t smell or taste the food, so I am I watching. I would not mind living this experience, well not me, I don’t life non-plain dishes, but for people that like the taste. How could they watch this. I don’t understand. I think we are lost when you vote off your least favorite chef.

I am ready, I have my umbrella, bring it on.