Hopefully a marketing idea for a more popular DVD

When I went down to the beach my mom was watching episodes of the “Lost” TV series on DVD and the designs they had on the menus of the DVD were very inspiring. They had landscapes of the island and jungle with 3D text in different 2 point perspectives opposite to each other so that it looked like the text was nestled in to fit the image.

It looked very cool and I was thinking that I could use that as a concept to make a DVD menu for my portfolio.

Maybe a better DVD menu for my portfolio would be to do one of that idea I had about the contest for “The Writer’s Nightmare” that had a treasure hunt in it. It probably would be a lot better seller than the DVD I have there so it might be more popular on Create Space. It would be a way to get a practice with original marketable material in a different kind of DVD setup.

That way I could have a more professional DVD menu design to show in my portfolio but also a marketing idea that has more of a motivation for people to be interested in buying the DVD since they are more likely to go for the challenge and profit of a treasure hunt.

In keeping with one of the themes to story in “Nightmare” I could have the treasure hunt revolve around gathering parts to build the GyroTwister and have clues relating to where to find the parts that could be hidden on web pages, maps to locations even products on Café Press and Zazzle.

I could have the clues on the DVD be easier to lead to some of the parts and then have them get harder to lead to clues more complex in more places to be able to put the parts together and solve the riddle. Some of the clues on the DVD could be in that extreme typography with animated text made from Adobe After Affects like in those videos on You Tube and some could be screen caps of the word clouds from the Wordle web page.

Since it is a journey to find the parts and solve the puzzles maybe I should put it in a framework of growth through the stages also or at least a heroes struggle against impossible obstacles to make it challenging. Tying in the theme of the Gamemaster from the story would be a good way to give clues that relate to archetypes and the Akashic records so that the puzzles relate to overcoming selfish pleasure motivation and alpha pack dominance games.

I could have some clues relate to gyroscopes and roller coasters maybe even have one hidden at Great America and the Santa Cruz beach. Hiding keys to locks at different locations would help to making it more challenging and that way I could have clues in merchandise that can be unlocked to match the merchandise that was designed to be bought.

Since the theme is a hunt to gather items and a journey to reach a goal, I could also make it like the Fool’s journey through the Tarot with each item being a stage of consciousness along the way. I could use designs I did for The Naked Angel Tarot cards as symbols and clues for the different stages and put them on merchandise to find as part of the contest.

I could use the chakra system as a model for gathering items related to each chakra like jewels and lotus flowers and have practices that use motivations that go from egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric to cosmocentric in order to solve the puzzles.

For the clues on the DVD I could have them lead to web pages on my blog, Café Press, Zazzle, CreateSpace, Amazon, Lulu and Spreadshirt to merchandise that have clues to significant locations with items can be hidden.

The clues on the merchandise could be pictures of gyroscopes with coordinates from the Universe Cube on them hidden in the designs so that they point to stories in the plot summary that way I can have them relate to other clues in different places and follow the theme of building the gyrotwister and gathering parts of the Universe Cube.

I could do some storyboards to get the ideas for the clues and designs for the DVD together so it would be easier to collect so all it one place to keep track of it. I could use a flowchart with Smart Draw to keep track of all the clues and tie that to storyboards in Illustrator to give more details.

The Essential Ingredient

When I met Krys it was like hitting the jackpot, grabbing the brass ring and winning the lottery that the odds of finding love ever happening to me finally came true. What I felt was like what was described in the song Angel Eyes.

She told me she felt the same way as that song, but the essential ingredient to any relationship is the willingness of two people to share their lives together. Susan Sarandon had a great way of putting it as a witness.



That might establish a baseline definition but it doesn’t say anything about the degree of commitment to the relationship. Krys and I used to use an example from the Mummy to show how much Evie loved Rick.

Admittedly it’s an extreme situation that required a greater showing commitment than most do, but Krys and I did discuss it and we both agreed that Evie did act more honorably to show the depth of her bond to Rick that she put his life above hers. While Anck Su Namun only showed that she put her selfish interests first by abandoning Imotep.

From the reaction that Krys had to that scene I had written to try and show a little bit of what being soul mates would be like, I thought that I had beaten the odds of finding someone that shared my ideas and goals in life. When we got married I thought I had found someone that I could let my guards down and trust to share my most intimate thoughts and ideas with. That was the plan that we were partners to achieve things together that we couldn’t separately.

When I tried to explain the practices of Tantric Yoga, she said she agreed with the ideas and wanted to achieve the benefits from it. But I’m not sure she understood what was involved in it from the practice we had it seemed like she was too afraid of letting go some of the baggage that was holding her back and lost the willingness to try and develop the discipline needed to make progress.

The trouble was that it seemed like she was unable to let go of her previous conditioning. She had led a sheltered life and was afraid of a lot of things. Her family history had left her with a distrust of men and it made her always expect the worst from them. From her father abandoning her and all the divorces in her family, her experiences had left a very negative impression on her.

It’s easy to say she followed the example of Anck Su Namun instead of Evie that she didn’t follow through on her vows and couldn’t contribute equally to the relationship, that she lied about being married and she was the one that betrayed the trust we had and committed infidelity by leaving for another. All that’s true but only part of the story. It’s just the surface facts and leaves out the depth of meaning and motives.

Now I’m wondering how much of what we had was her ideas of what a relationship was supposed to be projected onto me and mine projected onto her. I know we both chose symbolic ways of expressing things like mythic fairytale roles, like Piper and Leo from the TV show Charmed. They had a very committed marriage that they proved they would sacrifice their lives for each other. But they had their problems in their relationship also and sought help to work them out because they were still committed to the relationship. Is all Krys and I had were symbols with nothing behind them, wasn’t there more to it than that?

The point being is that even with all the problems I held onto the Essential Ingredient of wanting to share our lives together and I figured that whatever problems we had could be worked out if we wanted to go on with our lives. But apparently that’s not what she wanted since she bailed as soon as she could without putting much effort into trying to work things out.




I showed my mom the “Soulmates in Peril” video that I had made for the last wedding anniversary that we were together. I got stuck telling her more of the technical parts of the video because I had trouble describing all the symbols in the story that I developed for Krys.

Those symbols did have a lot of meaning to both of us they certainly communicated some things. But what if they were not exactly the same things because of the different levels of development? I definitely meant the vow of always coming for her and (death) or even the distractions from the illusions of samsara working out karma would not delay me forever. What if Krys started to identify more with Belle in that video then my Imzadi because she didn’t think she could live up to the harder role symbolized by being my Imzadi and gave into her inner demons to fall back on the role of Belle? In that way then she would be serving the Red Demon of her Past Conditioning.

That would make more sense if she confused the roles and identified with the self-destructive urges to base her decisions on. I can understand being afraid to put the effort into trying for success because of the risk of failure, that just invities temptations from selfish impulses. After all I wrote in the video that “There was no mountain too high and no river too wide because I would go to any lengths to rescue my soulmate.” Then I said it and recorded it to put with the voice over on the video. I definitely meant that I would fulfill that promise so shouldn’t I live up to it? I did have a lot of trouble with accepting the responsibility of what that involves so the fear of failing at it was strong.



If it was part of the myth like in “Roswell” where Liz leaves and goes to a boarding school then Max has to track her down for Liz to save him. I still would like to show that kind of devotion since like the song says I said “Honestly, I won’t give up you” but it does depend on the Essential Ingredient for her to also say “I shall believe”

A wider perspective than the egocentric might help to transcend that identification. If that were true then according to those symbols we would still be at the part where my Imzadi was kidnapped by her darker self and I have to go an rescue her from the demons of her past.

I put a lot of symbolism about jumping in and out of different realities in that video, from the comic book to virtual reality to photo-realism and I was thinking that might represent waking up from the illusions of the veil of maya like Richard Bach used in his book “One” and that Krys moving back to GA. might be like the test of Richard thinking that Leslie had drowned. To show the same principle that Richard learned

“Your own world is just as much of a mirage as any other. Your oneness in love is reality and mirages cannot change reality. Do not forget, no matter what seems to be” so by those symbols I would have to go to GA and show Krys that I could rise above the illusions that separate us from that “oneness in love” just like Richard was able to finally move the throttle of the seaplane and rise above the waters of the pattern. It does makes sense that Krys had some things to learn about independence that she had to learn by herself since we had talked about that before, it is just hard to know when she has learned enough yet. I would rather not have to wait until another life to reunite.

It all depends on how the fight between Belle and my Imzadi turns out in Krys. Has she grown beyond the level of development that Belle represents? Does she even want the Essential Ingredient that level of development my Imzadi represents?




Since I am going to start on the Integral Life Practice and part of that practice is to try and shine the light on the shadow aspects of yourself that have been repressed by your subconscious. So maybe I should ask a therapist about the psychological side of those symbols and find out what they think a useful interpretation of them is. That is what psychotherapy is supposed to address symbols in dreams and free associations to bring out hidden meanings. It certainly would help to have an objective opinion about what they mean and hopefully they can help expose some of the dormant aspects of myself that are draining my energy.

A competent therapist could probably get a more objective insight on who was projecting parts of themselves onto to who and maybe bring some clarity to the subjective interpretations of events. At least help me understand the parts that I had avoided and face up to the parts I wanted to ignore. It will be interesting to find out what their opinion is when I show it to them.

Cat Scratch Fever

I suppose it's no use put this off any longer since it's not getting much less painful, so I might as well get it out there. I've had 4 cats in my lifetime and my family has had even more. They've each had different personalities and quirks to them so I thought I had gotten used to the way that cats behaved and able to have a relationship with them.

As they say "Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. ...Jeff Valdez" and "If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer. ...Alfred North Whitehead" pretty much sums it up.



I went about 15 years from the time that Christopher died in Cupertino to being able to have a cat again since most of the places I had lived were with roommates and in apartments that didn't allow pets. So after I got the trailer to live in it was possible to have a cat again, when Carol Hemmingway offered to give us one of her kittens, Krys wanted a cat to keep her company and I thought it was a good idea.

In my experience with cats I had thought that it would be best to wait for a while until the kitten had matured enough to handle going outside and learned where his home was since I didn't think there was enough room in a 29 ft. trailer for a cat. But Krys was afraid that something might happen to him if he went outside. Since she was making the rules for him, I let her take most of the responsiblity of feeding and cleaning out his cat box.He was a good cat mostly and faily affectionate. He did most of the cat stuff like getting into things he wasn't supposed to and puking up hairballs, which Krys didn't take in stride as well as I did. He did have a thing about the rain that seemed to freak him out which might've been the noise of it hitting the trailer that scared him



When Krys left the responsibility of taking care of Angel was left to me so I figured it was time to let him go outside. He disappeared for a month and I figured that he would come back when he got tired of being on his own and hungry enough, I did worry about the amount of heavy storms we were having at that time and if he could survive them. When he did come back it did occur to me that he had learned something about how hard it was on his own and at least someone had the sense enough to get some help with it.

After that he got used to going in and out but he didn't like the outside much anymore since the other cats in the trailer park were pretty mean and he lost a couple fights with them. Although it did seem to help during the summer when the trailer got too hot and he could lie in the shade underneath it to catch the cooler breeze. I figured it was the best of both worlds since he had the food, water, catbox and comfort of places to sit inside and the freedom to go outside to see what there also. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way. Even though his demands for attention with the meowing, the head butting me in the face when he was hungry and puking up stuff he didn't like were annoying. I did have a strong sentimental attachement to him and I loved petting him and when he fell asleep next to me at night.



Angel woke me up as usual and it was around 9:30 in the morning when I fed him so he was fine then, but around 11:30 he was puking which wasn't unusual and I cleaned it up. Then I noticed he was meowing with a lot more painful note than his usual attention getting meow. I started to worry it was something serious when he started dragging his hind legs like he couldn't move them. I called my Dad to have him give me a ride to the vet and he suggested I call the vet to get an appointment. I wasn't sure if the vet would do anything without an appointment so I called them and the closest time they would see me was 2:30.

I tried to comfort Angel as much as I could but he dragged himself behind the bed and had a major bout of diarrhea. So I scooped him up from there and wrapped him in a towel to wait outside for my Dad to pick us up. We got to vet and we still had to wait a while. The doctor told me it was serious and he had a 50/50 chance of recovering. He gave me an estimate of how much he expected the treatment to cost and it was $661 which is a lot especially since Medicare doesn't cover wives much less pets. Since the odds were half that Angel could make it, I thought he deserved that chance so I left him there to be treated and the doctor said he would call in the morning to let me know how Angel was doing.

I had to go to Mural class so I wasn't there when the Vet office opened. So after class while I was waiting for the bus I called the doctor to see what was going on. The vet said that Angel had died during the night from some type of rat poison that he had probably gotten from eating something dead. I didn't see how he could've gotten that kind of thing from inside the trailer since I don't have stuff like that there, so he must've gotten it from outside. I felt pretty bad and started crying on the grass next to the hot dog stand. I miss having Angel around and it was hard to avoid the fact that it was probably my fault that he died.

I guess that I can add that to the list of failures to keep promises and fulfill the responsibilities I had taken on. Krys had the responsibility of taking care of Angel for around 4 years and then I had it for around 10 months and I blew it so it added to my guilt. I suppose I put off writing this blog about it in part because of the guilt of letting Krys know that I had failed to take care of Angel properly. I probably should've taken him immediately to the vet and not waited hours for an appointment, if I had recognized his paralysis of his legs as a symptom of poison, I might've been able to him the vet save him in time by getting there earlier. Maybe we waited to long and should've let Angel outside when he was young enough to learn better. None of the other outside cats had that trouble, maybe Angel was just to set in his ways to be able to take the risks and dangers of being outside. How much quality of life does a cat have when all he seemed to like doing was eating? I suppose the arguement that the trailer was too small for him doesn't hold much weight when he didn't spend more than hour outside on the average at a time. At least if I had kept him inside all the time he would still be alive and able to do what he acted like he preferred instead of what I thought he should have.

It probably was more a case of the grass being greener on the other side that he wanted to go out in the first place. Especially since after he had been outside for a month he certainly seemed to get over wanting it anymore. Was I right to give him that choice for the contrast? Was he any happier after he learned that being outside wasn't all it was cracked up to be? That's probably some attempts at rationalizing the decision since the fact is that he'd still be alive if I hadn't. I have had cats die on me before and some tragically way before their time by getting run over or getting their heads caught in a door. So Angel's death isn't all that uncommon in the fate of cats it's part of the risks of living. Maybe it is a lesson in impermance but that also seems like a cop-out to avoid being directly responsible. It's hard to take the wider view in the face of the details of what happened.

Integral Video Games

I got the Wild Divine biofeedback games and they were certainly worth all the money since the graphics are very impressive, the puzzles that make the goal of the games are challenging and the biofeedback exercises were very helpful to be able to see the effects of bodily processes reflected visually. I thought it was a great way to practice a lot of the yoga breathing methods and get instant feedback on how well it was working. Being able to see the results on the screen was a way to recognize what the experience was correlated to on the screen.

Taking the bodily responses like skin conductivity levels and heart rate variability and learning to manipulate them is transcending those bodily functions as a subject so that you don’t identify with them and making them an object to be able to differentiate and integrate them. I did a Vlog about them to show how they worked



I had some trouble doing a video capture and since the game puts several elements from .mov, .swf and .mp3 files together it was easier to just point the video camera at the screen since I was using it for shots of myself also even if it didn't get very good resolution from it.



I liked what Deepak Chopra had to say and hopefully with the quality of these games he'll be able to reach that "critical mass" whith the wider appeal that video games have than just yoga or meditation does.



Ken Wilber shows how you can find evidence of different types of brain wave patterns that correlate to different types of meditation but they aren't the same as and can't be reduced to brain states

Integral Troubleshooting

I think I’ll do a blog about Integral Troubleshooting before the one about the Essential Ingredient. It’ll help lay the foundation for it better and give me more practice in communicating with the camera.

Maybe it would help to write out some of the ideas I want to talk about first so I can focus better in front of the camera. If even talented people like Marina or Christine have to have multiple takes for their videos then I shouldn’t beat myself up if I can’t get it all out without any preparation.

The first thing is trying to improve my communication skills because they are so poor at actually telling someone the ideas and points that I’m trying to get across. I figure if I practice getting over being subconscious in front of a camera that it might help with my self-image problem. If I get comfortable expressing myself to the camera then it’ll be easier to do in front of other people.



The next thing is that part about uneven development and that having a shadow that is a repressed part of your ego holding you back is going to hamper your chances of growth because you’re leaving parts of yourself behind since they are hidden from you.

From what I’ve been hearing from Ken Wilber most psychotherapy techniques involve talking to uncover the subjective stuff like in dreams and focus on them to make them objects in your awareness so you no longer identify solely with them. Talking about it to the camera should be at least a start and that way I would have them ready to be seen by a therapist to give me their interpretation of them if I decide that’s necessary. It might not be if I can troubleshoot the problems on my own once they are out in the open and that way I wouldn’t have to take the chance of messing up my disability while I’m still dependent on it.




Another thing I can talk about is what I was telling mom about the amount of stress I used to be able to handle is a whole lot more than I can now. I was thinking after I wrote about that in an email to her, the last time I was able to cope with a large amount of stress was when I was making that 12 hour round trip from Fremont to Berkeley and still able to keep that job at BRC while suffering from a diseased gall bladder before I had to have it taken out. Then after Creator died I seemed to have lost the ability to deal with stress and never got it back. I guess that means that I never fully recovered the blow to my ego and I’m probably still repressing parts that I need to uncover.