Prologue
As usual, conflicted has multiple meanings in this post. I tried, a few times before, to reboot this blog. Every single time, as you can no doubt guess, I failed. I won’t say this time will be any different. In fact, it probably won’t. However, I promise to try my hardest to keep it going through the end of the year at least. Around this time, I usually make that promise to myself about the main page. More often than not, I keep the promise for a few months before falling off again.
Well, the main page currently lies dormant for the better part of two months now. I admit to ignoring it completely in that time, too. Two Magic the Gathering sets will have released, along with new content for Hearthstone. I wrote not a single word about any of it. To be honest, I thought about shutting the page down completely. I considered starting a solo podcast centered around football. Ultimately, it simply festered in a mire of neglect.
And, so, I remain conflicted. Do I keep writing for two web pages that reach my mother, possibly a couple of friends, and maybe a few of my current and former students? Or, do I save 12 dollars a month. We all know the answer to that.
The Prompt
From here: You’re in the middle of a terrible argument, and everyone turns to you to help resolve it. How do you respond? How do you react to conflict?
During one of my attempts to resurrect this particular page, I got the idea to react to a prompt of the day. I did some searching and found the page at the link above. I actually kept things going for a couple of weeks at the end of last school year and into the summer. Things fell off quickly during our trip to Key West and after. Truth be told, I fell off from regular posting much earlier than that. As a result I never told our adventures in Florida. That’s too bad because we had some great adventures. Perhaps I will weave them in over the next couple of months.
For now, I need to respond to the prompt. I actually perform well under potentially stressful situations, conflict included. I used to say that my brain didn’t respond the same way to stress as others, as far as I could see. When faced with stress, I often shut out any external stimulus and focused on the task at hand. For example, when Liam fell down a cliff near Doane’s Falls and cut his leg badly enough to require stitches, I didn’t even flinch. I ripped off my undershirt and tore it into strips as a makeshift bandage and tourniquet. We made it easily to the hospital.
So, that’s how I react to conflict. How do I respond to during an argument or if they are conflicted? Well, in addition to the aforementioned calm in the storm, I take the middle ground as much as possible. I try to get the two sides to hear one another. In fact, as usual, I find myself in the middle of a misunderstanding at least. One could make the point that it is a disagreement and maybe even an argument. I worked to be neutral and try to get the two parties to see eye to eye. Alas, my efforts were met with mixed results. Nevertheless, I continue to try.
The Geocache
HP Lovecraft 6: Dunwich (#297, 59 Days in a Row): Another idea I considered to keep myself honest and posting daily was to get back into Geocaching. Once upon a time, I was very into the hobby and found over 200 caches in my first few years. Then, I completely fell off and forgot about for about four and a half years. I figured, if I am updating this page anyway, I might as well update it with my Geocaching adventures, too. Well, I kept to one part of that. I’ve found a geocache every day for 59 days as of this post.
This cache is a “mystery cache”, which requires you to solve a mystery or riddle in order to find the final coordinates and the geocache. I was supposed to visit several of those history signs around town and use various years to fill in the missing numbers. Upon visiting the first location, I saw that the sign was not there. And, so I went on a Google search that led me to a PDF courtesy of the local library that gave me all of the answers. The cache was hidden in a pretty spot near a small waterfall as you will see in the pictures.
Epilogue
I think I answered the question of how I handle when people are conflicted. Sometimes, the universe has a way of aligning the subject of my post with the adventure I choose. This time was not one of those cases. I wanted to do this cache for a few weeks now, so I took the time off from work (working from home actually) to run some errands and I took a detour to find the cache. Far from conflicted, I enjoyed the trip very much. Plus, I found a house with some great Halloween decorations.
