I was cruising around the interwebs sometime around Thanksgiving, and a trailer caught my attention (link). It had swords, giant aliens, and quite a bit of action. I thought that the name sounded familiar, and I really felt that it was based off some books. I looked it up on my kindle and saw that it was, but not only that, the books were old and free! So I spent money on a collection (a whole 99 cents) and started reading them.

And to my delight, I found them quite entertaining.

So far, I’ve read the first three books, A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, The Warlord of Mars. The basic premise is this: A civil war vet named John Carter get transported to Mars and seems to fight with everything he finds. He makes friends and falls in love with the titular princess. He always seems to find himself fighting incredible odds, which have to be even more exaggerated since he is super strong. His Earth muscles give him super strength on Mars where there’s less gravity.

Like I said before, these books are quite entertaining. They are not award winners and I would actually probably define them as pulp fiction. John is a fully developed character that is incredibly moral and you’re just along for the ride as he gets into these crazy situations and adventures. You’re getting a sermon on how a man should act in a non-boring way. Real men never back down from a fight, they always fight for the woman they love, they don’t stand around and let injustice happen. John teaches those uncivilized people living in a hostile and unforgiving environment how to be civilized.

John himself doesn’t mature, doesn’t come to any realizations or revelations about himself – he doesn’t grow as a character.

Another interesting thing I really enjoyed about these books, was the fact that they are so old. The first book was written in 1917 and the way that Mars was envisioned as a dying planet with canals and life on it, reminds me of the hope and sense of adventure that was so definitive of early science fiction. Other science in the book is completely implausible and at sometimes laughable, but it never really detracts from the story.

I found this written down, and I’d love to hear what you guys think it’s about.

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I catch myself looking for you. I don’t mean to, but I find myself looking in the faces of the people on the street, in crowds at the supermarket, in the car next me on my drive home just to get a glimpse of your face. I expect to see you on the other side of Wal-Mart, when I stand in that one spot that you can see from one side of the store to the other.

I know I’m not supposed to look for you. I know you’re not going to be there and it’s breaks me each time I think I do see you. It’s not you, it’s never you. I don’t know why I look. I don’t know why I open myself to such pain. It’s stupid. I know better. I’m not sure I’d even recognize you if I even saw you; your face is a faded memory, almost an ethereal dream that I keep trying to force in this harshly lit life.

You’re my world. You’re my life. I feel like half a man without you here by my side. Everyday seems like a shell of itself. Even these phrases seem cliché and powerless. They don’t convey the feeling or the longing or anything.

Nothing is the same without you. Watching a movie isn’t the same without you there, to snuggle, to laugh with. Dinner is such a lonely time. There’s no one to talk to, to discuss the deeper things of life, to share an anecdote with. Just me alone with my food. There’s one plate. One glass. One fork and one knife. Each one taken from its kind and used, alone. Then discarded dirty. It’s like even my dishes recognized this loneliness, this disparity of eating by yourself.

But I press on. It’s what you would want. To be strong. To live my life and be happy. I hold this tiny, flicking flame against this darkness and against despair, knowing that one day we will be together.

———–

So what was the author saying? Who was he saying it to? How did it make you feel? Why does this seem like an english prompt?

So Friday night and Saturday I went hunting. I think I might have caught the bug. The only think that stopped me from going to the store and buying a compound bow and its ilk was the amount (or lack of) sleep I got the night before.

This morning I woke up and was thinking about it still. Then I remembered the email that I am supposed to be getting later this month, and the one in February; the emails that will start my first foray into bike racing.

Biking and hunting. Both activities are on my goals list and they sound like they would be compatible, but my resources are not well developed enough to support both of those “hobbies”.

Money:
Let’s be truthful – those things could be pricy. Racing means that my bike needs to be maintained better (spare parts, things breaking), I need to spend money on nutrition (energy food isn’t cheap… or tasty), and I will have to travel to the majority of my races (extra gas money, hotels, food on the road). And hunting? I own a hunting license and that’s about it. I will need a bow (and arrows), some hunting clothes, knifes, and some targets to practice on. And practicing! That leads me to my next point: time.

Time:
TIME! I’m yet to be a multi-millionaire with a butt-load of passive income, so I have to do what everyone else does and work a wonderful, amazing 40-hour a week job. That’s 40 hours out of a the 5 day work week that I can’t put towards either of these “hobbies”. Subtract another 40 for sleeping, another 10 for eating and showering and all that jazz, I’m left with only 20 hours during a 5 day week to put into practicing. Now while I’m not starting at zero with my skill in either of these “hobbies” (I know how to ride a bike and shoot a bow), I’m not at the level where I could “compete” with other riders or hit a target at more than 15 yards.

So I have either 20 hours to put into shooting arrows into a bale of hay or 20 hours to spend working out and riding. Not to mention all the other things I need/like to do during the week: Church, hanging out with friends, other projects that I’m working on.

And the weekends! If I have a race, that means that weekend I can’t go hunting. And if I have them back to back, that means that I might not get to hunt, or not get to race.

So. To sum it all up, I’m going to focus on bike racing. I know I have a habit of jumping from one activity to another, which ever one holds my interest at the moment, and I kind of wish that I didn’t. Bike racing called dibs by being what I was excited for last month, and something I’ve already focused on and I just can’t “drop it” cause something newer came along.

Plus, I hunting seasons over soon. And there’s always next year.