Posted by Raul on July 8, 2011
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It seems Nixon was in the office when I posted for the last time…well…not that long. But it’s been a long time since I posted something that wasn’t on the run, like the previous two to this one.
Lots of things keep going on around here, including a project of taking apart a couple of components to fix some little details in the interior of a car, in which I got “a little” carried away.
Oops!
One thing leads to the next, and one problem shows the brother component also in need of attention, so what started as a small bunch of simple things ended up as a big project without much planning, thus taking more and more time. Five days, I thought it’ll take, and has been how many weeks so far? And still not finished!
And then comes the minivan that is making all sort of noises in the front suspension and steering box; and then the little one, which lost the accelerator cable in the last parts running 
So my apologies for not showing up for a while in posting and commenting in your blogs. I’ve mostly been in “Read and Run” mode due to the little time left by the other activities, but I hope now I can separate time again for a more “proper” blogging.
I must admit it makes me sad not to have the time to write, visit and comment in my friend’s blogs.
See you soon! 
Raul
Posted by Raul on June 8, 2011
For a couple of days now I’ve been receiving emails telling my message couldn’t be delivered; and the message (which I haven’t sent) clearly is spam. I’m not a computer expert by any means, so cannot tell what exactly the problem is, and even less how to stop it and fix it.
For that reason, and adding to it too many activities right now that are taking all my available time, I’ll be closing my emails to prevent being used by someone. I hate spam, and the last thing I want is appear as another spammer flooding your inbox.
If you have received a spam email from raulojeda, please accept my apologies for the inconvenience and rest assured it is not me and this blog trying to do such thing. As soon as time allows, I’ll go into the problem and try to fix it, although most probably I’ll have to leave the task to an expert in the field.
For a moment I thought to Copy and Paste one of the emails here, so if any of my readers could enlighten me on what exactly it is, and maybe how to stop it, it’ll give me the opportunity to work on the problem, but then I decided not to do so since I don’t understand all the technical wording of the email and became afraid of doing such thing could means publishing sensitive information about this blog that could open the door to hackers.
Still, if you have any suggestion, I’m all ears (or eyes).
If time allows I’ll try to keep posting, and the comment section will remain open, but the communication through the Contact form and any other form of communication that implies using Alien Ghost emails will be stopped for a while.
Thank you for your understanding of the matter
Raul
Posted by Raul on May 26, 2011
Lately it has been a struggle for me to come up with the time to write for this blog, and to do it in a positive tone of mind. Many things have been happening around here, together with several physical others breaking down and in need to be fixed, robbing up time originally planned for writing activities. So the thinking, writing and visiting friends around the net activities have suffered from a forced lack of attention.
Double reason to be surprised when a note from Sara at A Sharing Connection arrived with the news of Alien Ghost being selected to receive The Versatile Blogger Award!
By Sara’s explanation, it was a drawing rather than a straight selection, due to the many blogs in Sara’s preferences that meet the requirements. Still, an honor for me since in order to be selected by drawing, this humble blog’s name had to be in the “bag” of names from which to draw from.
Thank you Sara for the distinction, and my apologies for the fried brain cells while reading some of the posts, although your post-challenges have also fried some of mine in the process of trying not to fail to the test
One of the requirements of this award is to mention seven things about one for readers to know more about the writer behind the blog, so in that sense, and trying to go more personal, I decided to share with you my:
1-Social Security Number
2-Driver’s License Number
3-Email address
4-Street address
5-Phone number
6-Checking account number
7-Savings account number
Just kidding!
1- According to my mother’s records, I was born by the tenth’s months of pregnancy; purple and overgrown. The first seven years of life I spent about almost nine months in bed and three on my feet due to fever attacks that gave me hallucinations. There were sequences of ninety injections in three months periods, so I played with the little bottles and crazy thoughts since I was mostly too tired to move. By the age of seven the extraction of the tonsils fixed all the problems (Don’t ask me, I have no clue).
2- When I was about six months old an uncle used to call me “Stuffed Potato”…I don’t know why!
3- Because of my father’s job we used to move a lot when I was growing up, so the twelve years of school I did them in fourteen of them. That’s 1.17 schools per school calendar year! Although I didn’t like to change schools because it was always living as a ghost (it usually took me about six months to befriend someone) I really loved seeing new places and experiencing new weathers and geographies. All in all, a wonderful part of my childhood!
4- Trying to find a job, together with some inertia left from the first years, I had around 47 different jobs between the ages of 18 and 29. I did many things like: car mechanic; apartment interior repairs; work clothes manufacturing; jewelry artisan (silver casting and rock polishing); radio program recorder; events organizing (theater and music shows); apprentice miner; shoe manufacturing tools fabrication; brochure publication; taxi driver; bus driver; agro machinery mechanic; road repair work; decorative lamps manufacturing; fruits and vegetables seller (farmer market type); among many others.
Apprentice of miner. I'm the one at the right.
5- I hold certifications as Automotive and Diesel Mechanic; Industrial Electric Technician; Airframe and Powerplant Technician and Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Mechanic, but I love writing! (I’m still trying to figure that out!).
6- Memory it’s always been a problem with me (a gift from the fever attacks?); I always struggle to remember how old I am, and after many years of memorizing my age and then having another birthday, I decided to memorize just the year I was born; from then I just make a quick calculation after asking “What year is it?” (I’m not kidding!)
7- When I was 26, and stuck trying to write, I decide to take an opportunity that presented and tried marijuana to see what happens and see if it’ll help me in creative writing. Wow! So many ideas passed through my mind at an ever increasing speed, that I wasn’t able to write them down fast enough. The room started spinning and I had an amazing trip, but completely lost control of my thoughts. I never tried again by the fear of becoming addicted.
So there you have seven things about me
Another of the requirements of this award is to pass it on to someone the recipient consider a Versatile Blogger, and in that aspect there’s no doubt in my mind to name Nacho at Zerebria for the variety in his posts ranging from self improvement, common every day situations we all experience at one time or another, to hard analysis of the human mind and behavior, but all written in a “accessible” way for the common reader, without loosing the professionalism of a psychologist. Congratulations Nacho! I hope you accept, and so we all can also learn more about you.
Raul
Posted by Nacho on April 7, 2011
Today, my good friend Ignacio Jordi is visiting this blog, bringing with him his very interesting thoughts that always makes us think and gives us an opportunity to know more about ourselves. If you haven’t visited Nacho at his blog Zerebria, please take some time and stop by to read his timeless and very educative posts.
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Casiotone nostalgia, or the way we learn
Hello everybody, and thank you once again Raul for letting me show up at your wonderful blog; I’m honored of being a guest here in Alien Ghost, for sure one of the friendliest aliens on this side of the galaxy! My article today is about learning. I hope you find it enjoyable.
Some of you may remember it; in my country it got to be sort of a symbol of the 80′s, one of those many objects from that decade which have become a dear memory. The Casiotone PT-1 was not longer than a laptop screen, its keys were so tiny that they were almost square, and it had a very recognizable rhythm that was sort of its anthem (too-kee-too-kee-too-kee-too-too-too-kee-too-kee-too-kee…)
That cute and comic electric keyboard was my first one, the instrument that introduced me, and many people in my generation, to the delights of playing music.
But the Casiotone PT-1 had one more feature, the one I want to focus on: it was monochannelled. In other words, it only allowed you to play one note at a time; no sound appeared when you pressed a second key unless you released the former first.
Now you might say it was a limitation rather than a feature, but try and see it through the eyes of a kid who is approaching for the first time the world of music, of making music. Fascinated, I practiced every catchy tune I could think of, in the mood of someone who disassembles a toy to see what’s inside.
Obviously, you need no more than one hand to play a single note, so I could help myself with the other hand when I had to play something that was fast or tricky, and the result was always gratifying. I used to practice over and over until the notes came perfect. The only variation factor I was allowed was the four different instrument sounds to play with.
I did not know it at the time, but it turned out to be a perfectly natural introduction to music. A succession of single notes, one at a time, is what in musical theory is called a melody. And melody is the skeleton of any musical education, the first thing that humans tried out when they intended to make pretty sounds.
So the limitation imposed by the instrument kindly forced me to train myself in the basics of music; all my attention was focused on the melody, and the quality of sound. There was nothing else to care for.
That way, when, later on, I moved to a new, more potent keyboard, which allowed simultaneous channels (I think they were four), I was ready for the new challenge ahead: simultaneity of notes. Harmony. My next step, then, was fleshing out the melodies I had learned; to my surprise, I discovered that any song allowed a lot of possible ‘dressings’, the choice was not limited to finding a single ‘right one’. My research took me to new stages, to more complex ‘toys’, as I started to try out different chords and series…
Learning is the process of practicing an ability under controlled circumstances. The first surfing lesson is taken on land. The skilled spokesman records himself at home, with no people round, to see how he looks and sounds. The child gets familiar with the bike using small supporting wheels before heading for the challenge of balance on only two…Sometimes I wonder if I would have learned music the way I did if my first keyboard had been one of those high-tech monsters around in our days. I’m no specialist, maybe there are still monochanelled beauties out there, but the mainstream seems to be dominated by keyboards with zillions of instruments and virtually no channel limitation, where pressing the demo button bursts into a Sting song or a Wagner, loud as hell.
Maybe I would have learned just the same, but I would have had to figure out the ‘chunks’, the limitations by myself. So my conclusions are: 1) learning is one of those fields in which less is more, and 2) when trying to help someone learn, removing options is not imposing a handicap; it is being considerate.
Can you think of other examples of learning under controlled circumstances? Do you impose yourself limitations to help you learn something? Ever had a Casiotone PT-1?
Nacho Jordi is a psychologist and translator who lives in Madrid (Spain). He is the author of the Zerebria blog, where he offers tips and hints for personal development and conscious living, besides all kind of contemporary musings.
Posted by Raul on March 11, 2011
Checking the hard drive of my computer to see what posts I’ve been working on, and to complete some of them for future publishing, I’ve come to realize there are so many waiting to see the daylight. After a quick count, I noticed there are more than one hundred!
There are six folders: Entertainment (2); Fiction (29); Memories (0); Projections (1); Thoughts (62); and Uncategorized (8). -The six categories I have in this blog. The biggest numbers are in Fiction and Thoughts, while the smallest (0) is in the Memories folder, which is of no surprise, considering my terrible memory
Every time an idea comes to mind I write whatever comes out and place the “project” in the appropriate folder, ready to be completed when there’s more time available. Unfortunately, the original idea seems to vanish completely when I try to retake the post to complete it.
Perhaps the worst part is that ideas come to mind in the most “inappropriate” circumstances, like when driving in my delivery shift, when in the shower, etc. In some instances it is of no problem to just grab a piece of paper and write down the name of the post, the general idea, and some quick notes to help the future writing. But when the time comes to actually take the task of completing the posts (a couple of days later), my mind either becomes blank, or I can’t see the reason or logic of the original idea, making worthless the whole point.
I’ve tried (when possible) not to stop writing when the idea comes around, and simply postpone whatever I was doing at the time, but usually there’ll be some research involved, and the time required to complete the whole process force me to still leave the post for future complexion.
The result is more than one hundred posts waiting and nothing ready to publish.
-Does it happen to you?
-What procedure do you use to write those ideas that cannot be completed at once?
-How do you organize your writings in your computer?
Let me know in the comment section.
Raul
