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Below is a paper I wrote for a college lit class. It was a fun research project. Enjoy – Bill Dragons appear in our oldest mythology and folklore. Dragons have been a source of terror and mystery, throughout history. They populate early mythology, medieval literature, the Renaissance, and modern fiction. The dragons of today share many characteristics of the dragons from our earliest folklore and myths. No longer the feared hero’s antagonist, or the confidants of emperors, today dragons live on in our fiction. ...

The thing is huge! I know I’ve said that a dozen times already, but it is ridiculously large. Its the same (almost) screen size as my kindle touch. For someone without an iPad, the extra screen real estate might be nice, but as a phone, it is just way too big. There are a couple of features that I really do like. For example, a setting will mute the phone if it is sitting face down on the desk. I don’t know where the setting is, I was hoping to find it and include as part of the post, but I can’t find it. I know about it because a popup shortly after I started using the phone told me about the feature and offered to activate it. ...

I got an evaluation phone at work to fiddle with for 30 days. I’ve been a long time apple iPhone fan, and still am, but I’ve been hearing more and more good things about Android and Android phones that I figured it was time to check them out. My first reaction when they handed me the box was, “Damn! This thing is huge!” 1Password yeah! I wasn’t smart enough to look for a 1Password android version first thing. It took me a couple of hours and several typed passwords before I wised up and searched. 1Password syncs with my dropbox password list just like on the iPhone. ...

Yeah! I’m finally getting settled in the new place. Moving is exhausting. Mostly mental, but exhausting none the less. I haven’t lived in an apartment since my early Navy days in Virginia. I shared an apartment with a Navy buddy in Virginia Beach. We were noisy! To be honest, I don’t remember much about the complex, just the apartment. I don’t know if we had lots of neighbors, and if the raucous we created caused problems. ...

Silence. Internal voices saying, “I’m not good enough,” and “I’m evil.” Jibes and taunts. I talked about this some in the MBAGPP post, what it is like to stand apart from society and deal with the bigotry. Folks are driven by these challenges in different ways. Some turn away and find new groups and families that meet their support requirements. Some close down and get angry. And some quit, unable to deal with or unable to bear the burden. ...

I make no claim to understand people. In fact, I’m often confused by peoples motivations or responses. For a long time, I was convinced that my lack of understanding was a result of my own limitations. I believed I was either naive about the situation, or I had put up too many barriers between myself and others to ‘grok’ their meaning. We all have so much in common, so why is basic communication so difficult? We are all born, we all die, we all suffer, and we all experience occasional joy. ...

Packing, boxes, tape, more boxes more tape…. That’s my life for the next few weeks. I’m getting ready to move. Finally facing reality and ditching the too-big house and moving into an apartment in the part of town where stuff actually happens. And I am going to use this opportunity to shed much of the stuff I’ve been hauling around for the past thirty years. We’ll see how that goes. ...

I use a lot of index cards at work, and wanted something to toss them into. The idea of a cigar box came up, and a little searching, I found a seller on Etsy that sells lots of excellent cigar boxes in great shape. Blissfuldragonfly took care of the transaction quickly and I couldn’t be more happy with the result. I bought a lot of five, and now have really nice landing spots for index cards, pens, and stray motorcycle patches I don’t know what to do with. ...

I did a bit of DIY this weekend. I love my car, but also really wanted bluetooth audio with the stereo. The factory Toyota options are a bit on the pricey side, so I screwed up some courage, picked a cool new stereo off of Crutchfield, read many websites, and watched many sample videos, then installed the new stereo. Taking apart the dash turned out to be pretty darn easy, and not all that frightening. It’s all snapped together, with two screws holding the base pieces. To be honest, I wouldn’t have accomplished this part with the instructions alone. Watching a couple of video’s on youtube showing how the dash comes apart to access the built in stereo really helped. ...

As I mentioned in a previously, I am working on recovering all of the old ClubReading.com reviews. We had some good reviews on that old site, and I’d like to have that content available again. I did not write all of those old reviews, and will include the reviewers name when I have it. So I’m going to post a few as time allows in the blog stream, and they will be in their own ClubReading category. Enjoy! ...