I’m a fan of Chris Lester. Not only is he a talented writer and podcaster, a wonderful voice actor, and an all-around awesome dude, but also apparently he’s also a mad scientist in the kitchen.

In his latest blog entry, he shared the stream-of-consc…

Good luck on your trip I was born in Springfield, MO and now live in St. Louis, MO so I hope you enjoy your time in my home town.

I love your podcast and I wish we could have time to meet as you are traveling through my area but I work a very odd shift and you are not stopping in St. Louis so enjoy the trip and I hope you have a safe journey chris!

Also, your web banner is stunning!

When I left Des Moines to move back to Chicago, I had many the same feelings you have. DSM had been my home for six years and while most of my College friends had moved away already, I still had co-workers that I knew and was going to miss.

But at the same time, there were many co-workers I knew I would not miss.

You’ll inevitably maintain some form of relationship with those who you consider your friends. As with all things, that relationship will evolve and adjust to accomodate the new circumstances you find yourself in. And while nothing can replace the lack of seeing them every day, eventually new people will fill that void. \

But in the meantime, you can look forward to leaving the ‘fat’ behind. You can look forward to leaving behind those who you dislike, did not get along with, and could not stand. In your wake you’ll find only those who matter, and those relationships will strengthen.

I stil maintian routine contact with three people from my old office (we were an office of 15 so it’s a decent percentage) and I find that my friendships with them have only strengthened. We’ve become closer in our parting primarily because the range of topics we can discuss is no longer limited to what is ‘work safe’ or ‘professional’. We no longer have to worry about the eye of our supervisor if we wanted to talk about the game, or our weekend plans, or the issues in our personal lives.

Not all change is loss. Some is, to be certain. But some is also gain, evolution, or true change wherein nothing is gained or lost. All of it, however, is inevitable.

Safe trip. Looking forward to Thursday night.

Rocky Horror is a unique experience that everyone should have and (for some) promptly forget afterward. If you saw the director’s cut then you’ve gotten to see the bit at the end that actually places the feature in a context that comes dangerously close to having the whole thing make sense. ^^D

For your amusment: Heres an AMV for another well known song from the RHPS soundtrack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Ydd2G9ed8

Fantastic news!

It does seem that God does a lot of sifting and refining before he puts us in the place where he wants us to work. Glad He knows what He’s doing, left to our own devices I’m sure we’d just end up cocking it all up.

Reading this reminded me of a verse from Proverbs that I thought was relevant

‘In his heart a man plans his course,
but the LORD determines his steps.’

Proverbs 16:9

I return to this just to remind myself that God’s got his hand on my life - no mater how much I might struggle to get away from it at times!

Wonderful news mate, I’m sure you’ll have a great time teaching - and I’ll be praying that God pours out a few more blessings on your life.

Cheers

Congratulations, Chris! I am SO happy for you. You just made my day!

All kidding aside, this is AWESOME, Lester, and I am so happy for you!

Tim Ramsey

I also agree with Diane, a whole day of driving alone will be rough but trying to spend time and hang out with some folks while you are there is going to be even worse considering you have full days of driving the very next morning from when you arrive. Double your time to enjoy it better…hell, at the very least you will be well rested for the next day of driving.

Yano, you should set up an event for your good fans out there if they are interested. Especially in Phoenix

I really like the idea of the cross country adventure your planning.

You’ll blog your trip, right?

As I’m sure you know, there’s a whole crowd of cool podcasters who live in Phoenix. If it were me, I would totally time my trip so that I could go to the Pool Party that Mr. Mennenga is planning on June 28.

For instance, in the animation industry (in which I’ve just spent the last seven years) I realized that production people were more accepted by artists and Directors alike if they wore funky, creative outfits - fashion wasn’t important so much as showing a sense of personal creativity and youthful fun, no matter what your age (a dose of ’sexy’ helped too - for guys and girls). If you could find the balance between individually funky and creatively organized you were a hit with the artists and Directors, making your job easier to do and helping guarantee employment on the next show. The irony was that dressing for perceived competence at this level pretty much cut you off from advancing into the more senior ranks, thereby keeping you down, yet anything more conservative smacked of being overly ambitious and therefore to be avoided or that you were a ‘temp’ and didn’t really fit. Less casual and creative dress, while generally acceptable, often made you little more than furniture and easily overlooked for the next season of work.

Another example: My husband, in the animation industry since he was in his late teens as an artist, mentioned the Hawaiian shirt era of the late 70’s through to the early 90’s where the (predominantly male) artists were known by their regular wearing of Hawaiian print shirts. At a time when nobody wore Hawaiian shirts to work unless your company was progressive enough to have ‘casual Friday’ it was the serious and good-enough-to-be-regularly-employed artist’s way of thumbing their nose at conventional work situations and declaring their superiority. The irony again here being that the animators created their own unspoken uniform. Not only that, to many outsiders the ridiculously repetitive work and high pressure schedules were seen as little more than playing around and the animators didn’t garner much respect at all. In the end they had the same problem with their bosses. While animation is by no means an equivalent workhorse to being a factory worker it’s not a vocation for the lazy and one of the results of this casual affectation by artists has backlashed on them by demanding high quantity and quality output in very short periods of time, with no rise in pay. Any artist who stops to catch their breath (and their sleep) in between projects risks losing their already shaky security of ongoing employment. Not only that, the wearing of the once ubiquitous artist’s Hawaiian shirt now also sends the message that you’re pretentiously old-school, not technologically up-to-date in this 3D world and that your hey day has long past.

I have an additional thought about the clothes we choose - and choose not to - wear. At Halloween there’s no doubt that the costume chosen says much about a person. So does NOT choosing to wear a costume. People like to be individual but generally only as a group. Casual Friday is only acceptable if all participate and you only want to dress up for Halloween if all your friends and/or co-workers are doing the same. Going against convention to show your individuality isn’t good enough either and easily backfires to be viewed as laziness (if you don’t get involved when others do) or as a sadly exposed insecurity with oneself and/or immature attention-seeking (if you strive to be different).

Rather than risk getting pigeon-holed for one extreme or the other sometimes uniforms can be relied on to take away this exhausting daily guess-work and instead let the worker (or student) concentrate on the task at hand.

There was a survey taken among all the schools in the state when I was in senior highschool (in Australia). The question was: do you think students should wear a uniform or be allowed to wear whatever they want? Surprisingly, students all over the state voted overwhelmingly - to the tune of over 80% - in favor of uniforms. With my own wardrobe being rather sparse and my pocket book rather empty, this came as a huge relief. Yet individuality was expressed in much smaller ways not immediately apparent and despite the overwhelming sea of teal and dark blue on campus it was impossible not to see the individuals among them.

I think the more casual approach to dress in the workplace these days has rendered some of that creativity and individual expressiveness numb. I saw more uniqueness in the uniformed classrooms then than I see now in the casual shirt and pants wearing environment people seem to favor today.

But I don’t think this is the fault of the lax dress code. Instead I think the lax dress code is a result of the dwindling individualism in representing oneself in society. Where once the most affluent individuals wore outrageous and one-off attire now in order to show they weren’t part of the herd the dress-code now leans strongly toward the creams and beige. It may be hard to keep clean but there’s nothing very special about being able to coordinate ‘ecru’ and ‘bone’.

From avid t-shirt wearers to beige pant suits, it seems we’ve just traded in one cookie-cutter for another; one poorer in many respects. The resulting confusion becomes even more apparent when it comes time to dress ‘properly’ for a special situation: rather than pull out a costume that fits us well, we awkwardly borrow from traditions we no longer uphold, unable to be ourselves despite the uniqueness of our clothes.

The answer doesn’t appear straightforward or obvious except to reiterate the old standby ‘just be yourself’ - whatever that means.

Now where’s my monkey suit?

While my sales and marketing associates were taken seriously wearing a suit and tie, I got the best results looking rather unkempt. I affected a ponytail which looked awful no matter what I did, and went for a full beard and mustache before trimming back to a goatee. If I dressed in a suit I would be ignored. But when I dressed in golf shirt or t-shirt and jeans I was instantly identifiable as the tech genius.

Contrary to Jared’s main point, I was more successful when I fit the mold of what the customer thought a tech guy should look like. When I tried to look debonair I was not taken seriously.

I believe the thinking back then went like this: “He looks like a mess, but they still employ him. He must be highly competent or he couldn’t get away with it.” I know certain people who “get away with it” today. They dress Goth and it seems to be taken as a sign they’re very good at what they do.

Now that everyone in my industry has affected my mode of dress, I am pining for a way to be the rebel again. Maybe it’s time for me to find a nice blazer and tie to wear. Maybe if I get the color combinations so discordant my customers will think, “He must be the best. Otherwise how could he get away with that outfit?”

-Paul

As for my own style: I tend toward denim and t-shirts. In the past, this was because I worked manual labor jobs where it was assumed one’s close would be beat to ****, covered in various dusts and thrown in the trash after a year.

Now I wear denim and t-shirts for a different reason. I was “homely” to begin with and I’ve gained over 100lbs since my construction days and I’ve realized that there are no magic clothes (or hair style or shoes or whatever) that can make me look good. As such, there is no point in depriving my children of the things they need so I can be a fat guy in a suit rather than a fat guy in a t-shirt. *grin*

On the other hand, when the president of the company goes around in a polo shirt, dockers, and tennis shoes, but still acts like an officious bastard who expects everyone to cater to his every whim, when the polo shirt and dockers becomes the NEW corporate costume, where is one to turn for informality? Blue jeans and tee shirts, fine…

Then what when the tee shirt and blue jeans outfit becomes the new corporate costume?

I think Whimsy has a point, too.

Like the costume of the female ghostbuster on day 3 vid; very cute.

It could be a pretty impressive “purse” for bards (even if the “bard” can’t play this thing.

A device, roughly the size of a restaurant pager, attaches to the top or side of a preexisting safe. Its then set to phase the safe out of mainstream or “normal” time by a relatively small increment; some managers have their’s set for two or three seconds, though one second is usually enough. A smaller companion device the size of a car beeper will have already been issued to the store owner and/or manager who has synchronized it to the same amount of time. Now, whenever something is needed from the safe, he/she taps the button on the “beeper”, retrieves the previous days earnings then taps the beeper again to reenter normal time who may then retreat to the office to do the paperwork and make the daily bank drop.

Godspeed and have fun at Balticon.

Awesome story Chris.

Thank you Chris - a good post. You have summed up how I feel nicely. I found your blog from your the pod cast which I enjoy.

*sigh* If only it were that simple…

If we weren’t meant to use our gifts or at least use those things that make us different, then most of the stories in the old testament would loose a significant layer of meaning. In Judges, God called out Ehud because he was left-handed, Ruth was fiercely devoted, Ester was painfully hawt (when Angelina became a good will ambassador the second thought that occurred to me was of Ester); from there the list goes on.

As for what makes us distinctive as humans, I agree with your major points, in fact, so do most secular humanists (including the Ayn Rand institute). Its something I think about on occation, when I do its usually time to trod out the Rich Mullins:

[Intro from Higher Education and the Book of Love]

“What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be human?
I cannot help but suspect that at one time in the history of thinking
that people believed that it meant that we were spiritual and that we
could make choices and were capable of aspiring to higher ideals…
like maybe loyalty or maybe faith… or maybe even love.
But now we are told by people who think they know, that we vary from
amoeba only in the complexity of our makeup and not in what we
essentially are. They would have us think as Dysart said that we are
forever bound up in certain genetic reigns - that we are merely products
of the way things are and not free - not free to be the people who make
them that way. They would have us see ourselves as products so that
we could believe that we were something to be made - something to
be used and then something to be disposed of. Used in their wars -
used for their gains and then set aside when we get in their way.
Well, who are they? They are the few who sit at the top of the heap -
dung heap though it is - and who say it is better to reign in Hell than
to serve in Heaven. Well, I do not know that we can have a Heaven
here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a Hell either.
What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but believe that it means
we are spiritual - that we are responsible and that we are free - that
we are responsible to be free.”