El Progeso Del Peregrino Has Moved!

Hello everyone; today is the big day. Today is the final time I’ll be publishing on this website. For weeks I’ve been working on my new website and it’s clear that it is now time to bring the Blogger era to an end. This website will continue to exist for the indefinite future, but baring extreme circumstances there will be no more future updates to it. Going forward, all of my online writings will be published on my new website, which is:

www.ricardopedia.com

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the journey of El Progreso Del Peregrino. As you might remember, the name of this website translates to “the pilgrim’s progress.” For almost six years we’ve been on a pilgrimage together, through travel blogging, gaming commentaries, life stories, political opinions, writing adventures, random thoughts, and so much more. Every pilgrimage eventually comes to an end, however, and today the pilgrim that is this website crosses his own finish line, handing off the baton to the next pilgrim.

See you all on the new website!

-Ricardo

Christmas Lists

My family has a practice where everyone submits suggestions for gifts they would like to receive for Christmas. You aren’t guaranteed to get everything on it, but you know you’ll get at least a few things and it saves everyone the trouble of trying to figure out what to get for each other.

When I was young, I loved making my Christmas List. There were so many toys, games, and other things I wanted. In fact, the hard part of making the list was selecting what exactly to put on the list since drafting a full page of stuff would be seen as being greedy.

These days, creating a Christmas List is really hard. This is partly because my desire (and available storage space) for possessions has dramatically shrunk since I was a kid, and partly because some of the few things I want these days are expensive and I’m not going to ask my family to pay for anything like that. One of the other things that makes creating Christmas Lists hard for me is that my gaming hobby, which should be a veritable fountain of Christmas List suggestions, is off-limits. I don’t know why, but I can’t bring myself to ask my family to get me video games for Christmas. Years ago I put a game on my list and got it on Christmas, but I felt so guilty about it that I resolved never to do it again. Am I secretly ashamed of my passion for playing and writing about video games? If so, maybe I should put a game on this year’s list to try to put a dent in that mental wall.

At the time of my writing this post I’m in the middle of agonizing over this year’s Christmas List. I should have tried to make one prior to Black Friday so my family could take advantage of any sales on stuff I wanted but it’s been really hard to think up stuff for it. Hopefully by the time you’re reading this I’ve been able to come up with something suitable to send out to my family.

Sugar Taxes

I have a huge sweet tooth, so as you can imagine I don’t like additional taxes on my favorite vice. At the same time, I can’t deny that sugar taxes work, at least for me. When I see a container of sweet tea that would normally cost about $2.75 but with the added sugar tax now costs about $4.25, it makes me hesitate, and more often than not I end up deciding not to buy the product. Curse you sugar taxes and your side-effect of making my diet slightly healthier!

Catching up on media

I got back from a four day trip New York City late last night and currently I’m in the grips of a classic First World problem—getting caught up on all the videos, podcasts, articles, and other media that were published while I was gone. On trips where I’m away from my normal online routine for about a week or longer I usually do not have this problem, as the amount of media published during that long of an absence is so considerably vast that I just give up on trying to consume all of it and I pretend like everything that was published while I was gone never happened. With journeys like the one to New York City where I was away for only a few days, however, the amount of media consumption required to catch up is substantial, but doable, and I feel strangely compelled to put in the effort required to get myself back to being current with the parts of the online world that I partake of. Today I had the advantage of working from home, meaning that I could freely have videos and podcasts playing in the background while I grinded away at my tasks, and as of the time of the publishing of this writing piece I’m nearly caught up. Tomorrow I expect to once again be current with my online world, but today’s experience, like all similar experiences I’ve had in the immediate aftermath of other short-term trips, suggests that I may be placing too high a value on the media take in. Thus I have decided that whenever I take my next short-term trip I’m going to make a conscious effort not to try to consume everything that came out while I was gone. A few high priority items will still get my time and attention, but others will be let go of. This should make for a less stressful aftermath of future journeys.

Ima Fire Tiger!!!

I’m not just a Tiger, I’m a Fire Tiger, baby! When I was in elementary school I remember learning about the twelve different animals of the Chinese zodiac, and being born in the year that I was made me a Tiger. As it turns out, there are five subdivisions within each animal—fire, earth, water, gold, and wood—and the particular Tiger year of my birth was a Fire year. According to a website I found online, people born in the year of the Tiger are brave, competitive, unpredictable, self-confident, charming, and likable, but also can be stubborn, impetuous, irritable, and overindulged. On top of all this, being a Fire Tiger means I tend to be optimistic and independent, with poor self-control. Those who know me personally can judge how accurate those descriptions are of the real me, but I’d be a fool to not take full advantage of this new information that I’ve learned about myself. Thus, I’ve created yet another alter ego of mine—this one called Ima Fire Tiger. Full credit for the inspiration behind the name goes to my friend Ben over a Free Refills. Going forward, Ima Fire Tiger will make occasional appearances in my writings. Don’t worry, it will be painfully clear when he shows up. Ima Fire Tiger will strive to embody those Fire Tiger characteristics to their fullest, especially the lack of self-control.

Motorcycle Ownership

I’d like to own a motorcycle. There’s a fair chance it will never happen, but it remains a life goal of mine. The main reason it may never happen is not because I couldn’t afford a motorcycle. Rather, the reason is that whenever I’ve thought about buying a motorcycle I’ve been discouraged from it because of the impracticality. Living in Colorado, my motorcycle would be out of action for about a third of the year, so I’d be paying for insurance and maintenance on a vehicle that I couldn’t use all the time. Also there’s the whole utility problem of a motorcycle having a very limited capacity to carry things. That said, I can’t shake the desire to own and drive a motorcycle from my mind. It’s a goal that only has a small chance of ever being realized, but it’s a goal nonetheless.

Some Things I Miss About Boulder

Even though I’m not an outdoorsy person, there were a number of outdoorsy things I liked to do when I lived in Boulder. Where I live now has some outdoorsy offerings of its own, but I still miss those things I used to do in Boulder once or twice a month in the warmer seasons. I miss taking a bike ride along the Boulder Creek Path and up a mile or so into the mountains. I miss walking along the Pearl Street Mall when all the flowers are in bloom. I miss climbing Mt Gagazet. I miss going to the Farmers Market, which I know is a really weird thing to miss, seeing as how I never bought anything from it. Thankfully my job is in Boulder, so at least I’m there for some amount of time each week, however when I’m at work I’m stuck at a desk, so I don’t get any actual enjoyment from being in Boulder. At some point in the future I intend to move back to Boulder, and then I’ll actually be able to enjoy the city again. It’s something I look forward to.

Drive through windows

Would you believe it if I told you that I can’t remember the last time I used a drive through window at a fast food restaurant? It’s true. I have a strange aversion to using drive through windows and always walk inside the restaurant to place my order. The reason for this is probably some sort of irrational subconscious fear or need that I’ve never identified. Maybe next weekend I should just kick myself and go through the drive through of Chick-fil-A or McDonald’s to try to break this silly habit of mine.

Another trinket gone

It’s generally not my style to bring back souvenirs from my extended travel sessions, but invariably I oftentimes come back with a few things I didn’t start the journey with. For example, in 2012 I came back with three pairs of socks that I had bought in Spain to replace some of the ones I had brought with me that had become worn out. From my 2015 journey across Europe, one of the things that got brought back stateside was some sore throat medication I had acquired in Croatia during the time I was temporarily sick. This past weekend I wasn’t feeling so great and needed some sore throat relief, and wouldn’t you know it, while checking my medicine cabinet I came across those Croatian meds. The sight of them triggered a rush of memories from that part of the journey (mostly of feeling miserable but not letting illness stop me from sightseeing) and I got a small kick out of using up the last of the supply. Another trinket from overseas finally got to be seen again, though in this case being discovered meant being consumed and the end of its useful lifetime. It’s somewhat sad that those meds are now gone, as they were something of a mental link back to the 2015 journey, but at the same time they were just meds, and nothing more. I don’t regret using them up and am fine with them now gone. For me, the real mementos of any journey are the photos and memories I collect while I’m there. Those sorts of things I will not so easily part with.

Why PlayStation?

I like to think of myself as console agnostic, but the fact of the matter is that I do the vast majority of my gaming on PlayStation platforms. One of the reasons for this goes back to the circumstances I found myself in during my college days. In my first year of college, one of my roommates had a PlayStation 2, which was my introduction to the PlayStation ecosystem. He also had a Nintendo 64, but the PlayStation 2 was the console I gravitated towards, and after that I stuck with the PlayStation family of consoles. Perhaps if my roommate had owned an Xbox instead of a PlayStation, I would have turned out to be primarily an Xbox gamer.

Since that time I’ve only owned one non-PlayStation console, the Nintendo Wii, but that’s primarily been due to convenience and my gaming interests. Whenever there was a game I wanted to play that was exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem I was able to make use of a friend’s Xbox, so I never had a need to purchase an Xbox of my own. Next year I might finally purchase an Xbox One, but for now I’m content to wait and see how Microsoft’s Project Scorpio pans out. For Nintendo’s part, their first-party lineup of games hasn’t appealed to me as strongly as the first-party games of PlayStation and Xbox, so I haven’t had much of a desire to buy their consoles. The Nintendo Wii was an interesting exception to this, as I, like many other people, got caught up in the novelty of its motion controls, and to the Wii’s credit it did have some good games during its early years. We’ll see whether or not the Nintendo Switch can do something similar. For the near future, however, I’m fine with just owning my PlayStation 4.

Other Things I’m Thankful For

To follow-up Friday’s writing piece and keeping the train of thankful positivity going forward for one more day, below are some of the other things in my life that I’m thankful for.

• I’m thankful that I grew up in a household where my mother and father were married and lived together in the home.
• I’m thankful I was born in and grew up in America.
• I’m thankful that my parents didn’t consider parenthood as some sort of second-class calling that was less important than their careers.
• I’m thankful for friends who have gotten through some rough patches in my life.
• I’m thankful that I have had the privilege of traveling overseas.
• I’m thankful that I’m debt-free and can live contently with few possessions.
• I’m thankful for the majestic Colorado mountains.
• I’m thankful for the privilege of owning a car.
• I’m thankful for video games and the many adventures they have taken me on.
• I’m thankful that I live in a day and age where I can do online writings such as this.

That’s just a few of the things I’m thankful for. If I took the time, I could list a hundred more, but for today I’ll stick with these.

Pockets Full of Soup

One of the podcasts I regularly listen to is Pockets Full of Soup. Hosted by Jared Petty, formerly of IGN, Pockets Full of Soup is a weekly interview/storytelling podcast wherein Jared talks to someone he knows and asks them to tell him about someone they are grateful for. It’s a small beacon of positivity amongst the swelling tide of malice that the Internet is known for, and if you’re feeling down on life, or if you’ve just spent too much time in the Youtube comments section, it offers a brief respite from the malaise of this world. Since I started listening to Pockets Full of Soup the thought has been crossing my mind of doing a writing piece wherein I pretend that I’m one of Jared’s guests on the podcast and answer his common questions. Originally I was going to have this ready to publish on Thanksgiving, which would have been appropriate for that day, but a number of things going on in my life at the time got in the way, and I had writing pieces related to my current employment that at the time demanded to be published. Consequently this writing piece got delayed until today.

Climbing Mt. Gagazet

Being situated right at the foot of the mountains, the city of Boulder has quite a few hiking trails that lead out into the wilderness. I’m normally not one for hiking, but there is one hike that I take at least once per year up to a certain spot on the Flatirons (the distinctive local rock formations that are often used as Boulder’s emblem). This spot was shown to me by a friend about a decade ago, and I like to think of it as my personal place on the Flatirons since it’s rare for me to run into other people there. Of course, being who I am, I had to give that place a name, so I call it Mt. Gagazet, which is a Final Fantasy 10 reference. Mt. Gagazet looks out on Boulder and the surrounding lands. The only sounds up there are the distant hum of the city, birds chirping, and the occasional rock climbers scaling the cliff face. I also have a tradition that when I get up to my spot I play the song Learning to Breath by Switchfoot (no idea why I do this, but it seems fitting). For twenty to thirty minutes I’ll sit atop Mt. Gagazet, staring off into the distance and thinking about whatever’s on my mind, until I decide it’s time to leave and then I’ll start the trek back down. I don’t climb Mt. Gagazet often, but it’s a refreshing thing to do, and I never come back thinking that I’d wasted my time.

We Are Pigeons

Like I said yesterday, I won’t be publishing anything about the elections results for at least a week, if at all. Instead, I’ve got a story for you.

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On the right side of this website you’ll see in image in the About Me box that I use as my profile photo on Blogger and a few other services. There’s an interesting tale as to how I started using the We Are Pigeons image, and I thought I’d share it today.

Elihu Syndrome

I sometimes suffer from what I call Elihu Syndrome. The name isn’t accurate to the story of the person it is named after, but it’s the name that first came into my head when thinking about it and I’ve never come up with another name to replace it. Elihu is the name of a man in the Old Testament Book of Job. Although Biblical knowledge has fallen precipitously in America, a decent number of people have at least heard of Job and might even be vaguely familiar with part of the story. Elihu shows up in the part most people don’t know about. When you ask people to recount the story of Job, those that can often give a rough retelling of the first two chapters, wherein God permits Satan to bring trials upon Job’s life and Job proceeds to lose his property, his health, and all of his children. After that comes the part of Job that most people can’t tell you anything about, which is actually the vast majority of the book. Chapters 3 through 37 (out of 42) are a long discussion between Job and some friends of his who came to him after they heard of everything that befell him. They go back and forth about topics such as justice and the nature of God, but Job’s friends turn out to not be particularly helpful, or even friendly. With Job’s friends is a man named Elihu, who during the conversation has been patiently letting his elders speak, and in Chapter 32, when he sees that Job’s friends have run out things to say, jumps in and starts laying into Job with platitudes galore, though he, along with everyone else, is silenced when God speaks out of the whirlwind in Chapter 38. That was a lot of background info just for the sake of a personality quirk of mine. Anyways, what I call Elihu Syndrome happens when I’m in a group of people (usually who are older than me) and I feel like it’s never my place to talk. Like Elihu, I’m waiting for the wiser and more insightful people to finish, but unlike Elihu, I never say anything. I just sit there, mouth shut, allowing others to speak their mind, convinced that I have nothing worthwhile to say, even when that’s not true. I’m not totally sure where my Elihu Syndrome came from, and I’m hopeful that I’ll one day break out of it, but for now it’s something I have to contend with.

Unread Emails

We all have our personality quirks, and one of mine is related to emails. In my short existence on this planet I’ve known people that have dozens, or even hundreds of unread emails in their inbox, and a few times I’ve even run into persons with well over one thousand unread emails. Personally, I have zero unread emails in any of my inboxes, (aside, of course, from those that have shown up since I last checked) and I take a strange pride in that fact. This trait of mine does not make me superior to anyone else in any way. Part of the reason why I read every email and reply to all of them that require a response is just my inner need to keep everything in order, but another part of this obsession has to do with personal pet peeve of mine. I’m not a fan of when I send out an email inquiry and then never get any sort of reply back, so I’m personally committed to not doing that to anyone else. Though I fail every once in a long while, I always try to respond within no more than 24 hours of receipt of any given email, assuming that email requires a response. I want to be known as the type of guy that at any given time can be counted on to reply to both the urgent and the mundane and not keep people hanging for too long. There will be exceptions, of course, such as when I’m traveling, but it’s a goal I continue to strive for.

Oh, and if I fail to reply to your email within 24 hours, that clearly means I’ve snapped, and I’d like you to imagine me as some sort of comic book villain who is nefariously twirling his mustache and laughing maniacally while ignoring the emails in his inbox.

"You only see the flaws."

Our parents know us well. Oftentimes they know us better than we like to admit. Last year I gave one of my wood photo transfers to my parents as a gift. They liked it, but in my mind all I could see were the errors I had made in the process of creating it and I was quick to point out where I had gone wrong. Exasperated by my inability to take a compliment or see any value in the things I produce, my mother said, “You only see the flaws." The thing is, she was right. I don't know what it is, but I when I look over my creations the first things I see are the mistakes. Whether it's writing, photography, filming, or any other creative act, I only see the flaws.

Is there a place for me in modern games media?

Yesterday while on Twitter, one of the people I follow re-tweeted a tweet from a person at Kotaku, a major video games media website, that stated their firm had an opening for a writing position and had a link to the job description and application. I took a look at the link and thought about it for some time. Jobs at major video game websites are hard to score and openings don't come often, so anytime I read about them I take a look to see what's being sought. If you've read this blog for awhile, you know that I enjoy both playing video games and writing about them, so a career in games media sounds like something right up my alley, but part of me wonders if there actually is a place for me in modern games media. The reason I ask this is because I'm not too keen on doing a number of things that seem to be common in games media, and the internet in general, such as instant reactions, fake internet outrage, click-bait articles, and vacuous Youtube videos. I don't want to do any of that, however it's clear that these things exist because they generate web traffic, so apparently this is what people want.

If staying on the bleeding edge of each day's hot conversation, being angry all the time, generating sensationalist content, and creating time-wasting videos are off the table for me, what is left in games media? One option might be the old-school basic journalism. Strictly facts-based games journalism, (what a game is, when it comes out, etc.) will always have a place in games media but that sort of career would get boring for me real fast and these days a lot if it appears to have been outsourced to freelancers so that websites can cut down on their staffing costs. Another possible path is game reviews, which I sort of already do with my commentaries, though I don't think of them as actual reviews and I never assign any sort of a score to games I talk about. The major downsides I see to being a professional games reviewer is that I'd probably have to play a lot of games that I'm not interested in and I suspect that many of my views are frequently minority opinion, so I don't think I'd be a good judge of what most people like in games. A third option would be the Internet Personality route, which has a certain appeal to it, but a hyper-introvert like myself who is really bad on camera and says stupid stuff when put in situations that require quick thinking is a recipe for disaster. I would need weeks if not months of coaching before I was ready to appear on a podcast or video and even then I would be limited on what I could offer.

Even after much thinking I'm still not sure where I would fit in games media, but the more I write about games the more I think I understand what I want to do with regards to them. I want to talk about the games that mean something to me, and in a way that's hopefully more thoughtful than the knee-jerk reactions that have been becoming increasingly popular online. That means not talking about every game. That means focusing on just certain aspects of a game. That means taking time to think over and marinate on a game before discussing it. That means doing a lot of things that simply aren't going to cut it in today's internet society, and I think I'm ok with that, even if it means I never find a place in games media. I may toil away in obscurity, but at least I'll be doing what I want to do and staying true to myself.

Circling back to that original tweet, I'm thinking that if I have the time, what I might do is try to prepare an application for the job at Kotaku and see how it looks. My resume is currently not structured to reflect my gaming and writing experience, so that needs to be overhauled. I'll also need to draft a cover letter that somehow details why I would be fit for such a job. When it's all done, I'll take a look at the tweet again and see if the job application page is still open. Though I probably don't stand a chance of getting the job, and I might not even want to do what they have in mind, if the spot is still open maybe I should click the submit button, and see what happens.

Electronic Reading

I like to think of myself as a prolific reader, though not in the traditional sense of having read hundreds of books. Rather, my reading is predominantly of the electronic sort, done by taking in an extensive amount of material found online. Each day I find myself scouring and devouring content on various subjects that interest me, so while I don't read tons of books each year, it feels like I'm reading the equivalent of many books each year. This isn't to say that electronic reading is better than paper reading, and I will gladly affirm that there is something special about the feel of a book in your hands. I am also not abandoning physical media completely - the fifty or so books on my bookshelf and my subscription to The Economist are a testament to that. However, electronic reading is undeniably more convenient than traditional reading, and for the foreseeable future it's how I'll be doing most of my reading.

Going Alone

I don't go to movies or concerts very often, and when I do go, I normally go by myself. This is partially a reflection of my personality and partially a result of the stage of life that I'm in at the moment, in that most of my friends simply don't have the time or ability to get out much these days. I don't mind going to a movie by myself, and in one sense it's nice because I don't have to talk about the movie until I'm ready to do so. But sometimes I do wonder if I'm missing something. Is there something inherently better about sharing that sort of experience with another person?

Back in January I read a short writing piece by a guy who contemplated the same question. He is a guitar enthusiast and had gone to see a performance by a world famous fingerstyle guitarist. However, none of his guitar-appreciating friends were able to attend, so he went by himself. He didn't have any friends to laugh with, discuss the artist's selection of music, or commiserate about how hard it is to get a right hand thumb to function independently from the right hand fingers to properly play a song. He missed the enjoyment of his friend's enjoyment of music, and the conclusion he came to was that friends are needed to really appreciate excellence (emphasis his).

For that guy, the answer the question of whether going to a performance with friends is better than going alone is a resounding yes. For me, I'm not so sure. When I go see a movie I am focused on the movie and I don't normally interact with others in the theater, and that might be why it seems to feel the same whether I go with friends or not. I guess for me the answer to the question is no, but still, I wonder.