Tom's Writings

Back when I was in college, I used to run Dungeons & Dragons for my friends. This was more than 40 years ago, well before the game was fully created.

Adventure
So what I needed to do was to create most of the adventures that the group would encounter. I’m a creative guy, so I was able to do this. The adventures were mediaeval — a bit like Game of Thrones. My friends liked the Dungeons & Dragons that I used to run.

I would come up with these complex battles/adventures along the way. The group needed to get past these, and move forward toward the next challenge.

Riddles
One thing that I would do was create riddles, where the correct answer gave the group a benefit. I have most of these riddles on my writing site.

Career
I started my career as an engineer, but I evolved to being a program manager. It’s interesting because being a program manager, in some ways, is similar to runnings Dungeons & Dragons. I communicate the end goals, and help move the contributors toward those goals.

Dreams
Another interesting thing is that I have complex dreams that are similar to Dungeons & Dragons. When I wake up, I’m a little surprised by the crazy complex dreams that I’ve had. They are sort of science fictiony, but they aren’t too sciencey. They are sometimes mediaeval — like a Game of Thrones adventure.

Summary
I find it interesting that running an adventure has been part of my life. I started this in college, did it as a career, and I now have complex dreams that are very similar.

When I went to college, I ended up at a university that allowed illegal (pre 21) alcohol drinking. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — a few hours south of Chicago. I wasn’t a partier in high school, but that changed once I made it to college.

Illegal Drinking
The university was between two adjacent cities. In one city, they would allow people to enter bars if they were 19. And the other city, they would allow people to enter bars if they were 18. Once you were in a bar, they would not check your ID to serve your alcohol. So essentially, the drinking age was 18. There were maybe half a dozen bars in these cities on the edge of campus.

Another characteristic was that my university had the biggest Greek system in the country — the most fraternities and sororities. We knew people in those fraternities and sororities, so we were often invited to parties at these places. 

So essentially, it was easy to party and drink alcohol.

Quart per Quarter
One of the bars had an event that they called Quart per Quarter. This meant that if you drink a quart of beer each quarter of a football game, then you would get a prize at the end (a T-shirt?) This is a lot of beer to drink during a three hour period of time. I did this once, but I threw up in the bathroom midway through the football game.

21
The other overlay is that I was the oldest of my roommates. So when I turned 21, I was the one who would go to the liquor stores to buy alcohol. I would always buy the cheapest beer. 

Once when I was in a bar with friends, I was the only one who was 21. The police came in (possibly because they were trying to undo what the bars were doing) and they checked everyone’s IDs. Since I was the only one in my group who was 21, I got a ticket — because they assumed I had purchased alcohol for my friends.

Summary
It was easy to party at my university. Maybe things have changed, but honestly, I don’t know. 

I’ve been diagnosed with ALS — a terminal degenerative neuro-muscular disease.

The common expectation is 2 to 5 years of life after diagnosis. They were a little late to diagnose me, so I’m guessing it’s more like 1.5 to 4.5 years for me.

DIAGNOSIS
It was interesting to diagnose me. They would say: do five squats, and I would do them. And then they would say: you don’t have ALS. But of course they were wrong. My legs are still surprisingly capable. 

I went to a physical therapist, and each time, even though I tried to improve, I could do less. On the third visit, the physical therapist said ‘I need to talk to your doctor.’

Finally, an ALS neurologist zapped my nerves with a device, and concluded that I had ALS. I was diagnosed about a year ago.

SYMdPTOMS
I lost 20 pounds of muscle. My inability now is with my arms. My hands are somewhat capable, but my arms can’t really do much. This means that my wife has to help feed me, dress me, and shower me. We have hired a gardener and a housekeeper – so my wife has a bit more availability.

The challenges is: if I happen to trip and fall, my arms aren’t capable of preventing me from injuring my head. This has happened three times — three times in the emergency room with injuries to my head.

Also, my lung capacity has degraded. So I find that my energy level is low. Plus, the oxygen to my brain has diminished, which impacts my memory.

BENEFITS 
The ALS organization provided a free powered wheelchair. It’s actually pretty beneficial. It only weighs 40 pounds, and it easily folds up — so we keep it in the trunk of the car. It took me a bit to accept that this was something to use. I’ve now become OK with using it. The wheelchair has the ability to travel 9 miles, which is a big distance.

Because I have a terminal disease, and use the wheelchair, I’ve been identified as disabled. We have a sticker that we hang from the car rear view mirror. That gives us the benefit of parking in disabled parking slots, which are close to the entrance of the stores, restaurants, etc.

IMPACT
I am taking anti-depression medication, plus I have a pragmatic head, so I’m not swirling about my situation. It is what it is.

I recently had a feeding tube installed in my abdomen. This provides the ability to add calories if my ability to eat through my mouth declines. Three days after it was installed, I accidentally pulled it out. We rushed to the hospital ER to get it reinstalled — which went quite well.

I feel bad for my wife. I worked full-time for decades, and now that I’m walking away from my job, I won’t be around for very long. She committed her life to me, so I feel bad that I’m parting ways in a few years.

It’s actually a bit weird. Of my siblings and my parents, I’ll be the youngest one to die. 

CAUSE
When you search for the causes of ALS, there isn’t a lot of good information. One cause is chemical exposure. The house that I grew up in had an alley behind it where they would spray pesticides once a year. Also, I worked a couple summers at my dad‘s chemical warehouse, but the chemicals that we packaged weren’t particularly impactful. Plus, my next older brother also worked at that same warehouse.

Another cause is athleticism. Professional athletes sometimes get ALS. I’ve always been a runner, including running 10 miles every other day in college. But I wasn’t a professional athlete.

A third cause is metal exposure. I do have some fillings in my teeth. Plus, i did have a metal rod in my shin bone when I broke it in college.

SUMMARY 
It’s a bit unfortunate that they don’t have a specific cause for ALS, or a treatment for the disease. It’s sad to be diagnosed with a terminal disease, but I have no control over it. My goal is to make the most of the rest of my life.

OVERALL
I am creative, and have an engineering head. These two factors feed my ability to do things like: build/fix things around the house, and also build interesting (but silly) creative things – like Halloween decorations.

When I plan for Halloween, I can envision some interesting end results, but one overlay (because I am a thorough thinker) is to ensure that whatever I build can be easily and compactly stored – so it doesn’t take up a lot of space between Halloweens. My creations all store compactly in my garage. (I see houses in my neighborhood that have so many Christmas decorations that they must: Rent the decorations? Rent a storage facility? Fill their entire garage most of the year?)

HAUNTED HOUSE

Overall
Years ago, I used to do a haunted house in my garage. The entire neighborhood loved it. It was a maze (dark, with scary music playing) with a dozen stops along the way. The maze was framed with PVC pipes, with black plastic hanging down as walls.

Items
Some of the interesting stops in the maze were: an alien baby incubator (an aquarium with mirrored sides giving the impression of an infinite number of babies), Dracula, Frankenstein (with his heart and brain uninstalled), a ghost, a scary clown, mutilated dolls (my daughter’s idea), etc.

Scary (Fake) Hole
But the most interesting one was my ‘Well of Lost Souls’ — which was two mirrors facing each other (one mirror on the floor, and one mirror on the ceiling) in a column with a string of (Christmas) lights between them. When two mirrors face each other, they reflect back and forth, and show what seems to be an infinite hole (if one mirror is on the floor). I put an (unnecessary) protective chain in front of the floor mirror, which gave people the impression that the ‘hole’ was real. This used to freak out kids (and many adults, who thought it was a real hole), plus my dog. If you put your head above the floor mirror, you see yourself — which is a bit scary. I had a sign next to it saying: ‘Woe to those that see their souls in the well!”

Here’s a link to a video of my in-garage haunted house (10 minute video). The fake hole is about 7 minutes into the 10 minute video.

HOUSE DECOR
Here is a recent picture of my 2023 decorated house: elaborate house decorations. I combined my complex annual decorations with my minimal ’jack-o-lantern face’ decor I used during covid – when there were no trick-or-treaters. The other contributing source are the items I used in my in-garage haunted house — which I don’t do anymore. 

Lots of cool stuff — the big spider was sometimes on the roof, and sometimes in the front yard. (It was interesting/challenging to have built a large spider that can stand on its own legs.) The kids helped me choose the words on the gravestones. 

At the front door, something descends onto the heads of tricker-treaters — sometimes a spider, sometimes a bat. I attach a hard-to-see fishing line to the door, elbow it inside, and have it hold the descending item higher up. When the door opens, the fishing line advances, and the (scary) item descends. Two interesting stories: (1) our shy indoor cat Olive is fascinated by the string — so we put a chair inside near it so she can frequently check it out; (2) we recently had a young trick-or-treater (6? 7? years old) fully understand how it works — he said ‘so you have a string that connects indoors and advances to make the thing descend’. He must have an ‘engineering head’ like mine.

DINOSAUR
One crazy thing I created was a 12-foot dinosaur costume. It took me maybe a week to create it, but the result was quite cool. The head pivots, the mouth opens, and it can walk (with me inside). One interesting characteristic is — it’s a bit heavy. I built it before they started selling inflatable dinosaur costumes…

NOW
Unfortunately, I don’t do my Halloween decorations anymore. Two reasons: (1) my wife has a friend whose husband died falling off a ladder, (2) I’ve been diagnosed with ALS, which makes me significantly less capable. I plan to pass my decorations down to my kids — mostly my oldest who owns a house.

Someday soon I should do an IQ test. I might have a high IQ (I have a crazy, swirling head.) But sometimes people with low IQ’s think they are smart… 🤔

Some characteristics about me that might mean I am smart:

• Math — As a teenager, I won a state-wide math competition (best math head in the state). Another lesser thing — I’ve been recently playing a worldwide sudoku tournament on my phone (a mathy game), and the stats say that, on average, I complete a sudoku puzzle faster than 98% of the other players.
• Engineer — I have a problem-solving ‘engineer head’ which allows me to look at something, understand how it works, and fix it (if needed) or improve it. I also use my head to build interesting things — like crazy elaborate Halloween decorations.
• Music — Weird thing about me, but — I know the words to thousands and thousands of songs, even songs from my childhood, and can sing along with these songs for hours while doing other things (like writing something like this).
• ADHD — One of my children got diagnosed with ADHD, and is taking medication for it. I have many characteristics of ADHD but, when I was tested for it, they said I was too functional — so I must not have it. BUT, maybe a ‘smart person’ can sufficiently function if they have ADHD. (This also makes me wonder that, if I took ADHD meds, maybe I’d be extra capable…?)

So, my two paths forwards are:

• Get an IQ test
• Talk with my neurologist about the possibility that I have ADHD, might be too smart to have it diagnosed, but could potentially benefit from taking ADHD meds

I’ve mentioned in a previous posting that I have complex dreams. I woke up yesterday morning with something in my head that wasn’t necessarily related to a dream, but it’s interesting — and I’m going to map it out now. 

Easy Square Process
I came to the realization that it’s easy to figure out the square of a number if it’s near another number: Take the square of the nearby number, and add both that number and the adjacent number to it.

Example: 11 Squared
To determine 11 squared, you do the following:

10 squared is 100. To find out what 11 squared is, you start with 100, and add 10 to it, and then add 11 to it. You end up with 121.

11 squared isn’t that exciting, because many people may already know that it is 121. This process is more useful with larger numbers.

Example: 101 Squared
Say you wanted to know what 101 squared. This is the way to do it:

100 squared is 10,000. Add 100 and 101 to it, and you get 10,201 — which is what 101 squared is.

Example: 99 Squared
You can do it in the other direction too. If you want to know what 99 square is, start with 10,000 subtract 100 from it and then subtract 99. You end up with 9801. That is what 99 squared is.

Example: 102 Squared
If you’re looking to find a number that is farther away than just one digit, you need to do more addition or more subtraction. As an example, 102 squared is going to be 10,000 plus 100+101 plus 101+102. Which equals 10,404. Essentially you need to do the addition or the subtraction as many times as the number is different.

Proof
To validate this process, you can see it through algebra:

(X+1)² = X² + 2X + 1 — which can be organized as:

X² + X + (X+1) — which is the logic I mentioned above

Summary
It’s a little silly for me to write this down and put it on my writing site, but it is interesting to me that I woke up with this in my head. This simple way of getting the square of certain numbers is interesting, and potentially useful.

I also wake up from complex dreams — I should document these, and use them as plots for written stories.