A New Sith...

I do not claim to have written this, but the original site is gone from the internet. This is too good to not share, so Keith Martin, if you're out there, let me know if you want this gone.
I present to you, A New Sith:

 If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon (as it seems we must) then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

Consider: at the end of Revenge of the Sith, Bail Organa orders 3PO's memory wiped but not R2's. He would not make the distinction casually. Both droids know that Yoda and Obi-Wan are alive and are plotting sedition with the Senator from Alderaan. They know that Amidala survived long enough to have twins and could easily deduce where they went. However, it can be assumed that R2 makes an impassioned speech to the effect that he is far more use to them with his mind intact: he has observed Palpatine and Anakin at close quarters for many years, knows much that is useful and is one of the galaxy's top experts at hacking into other people's systems. Also he can lie through his teeth with a straight face. Organa, in immediate need of espionage resources, agrees.

For the next 20 years, as far as C3PO knows, he is the property of Captain Antilles, doing protocol duties on a diplomatic transport. He is vaguely aware of the existence of Princess Leia but he doesn't know much about her. Wherever 3PO goes, being as loud and obvious as he always is, his unobtrusive little counterpart goes with him. 3PO is R2's front man. Wherever they land, R2 is passing messages between rebel sympathisers and sizing up governments as potential rebel recruits - both by personal contact and by hacking into their networks. He passes his recommendations on to Organa.

Yoda is out of the picture by this stage, using the Force-infused swamps of Dagobah to hide himself from Vader and the Emperor. Or something. He is meditating on the future and keeping in touch with Obi-Wan via the ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn, which as comm systems go has the virtue of being untappable. Obi-Wan, on Tatooine, keeps in touch with Bail Organa and the other Rebel leaders by courier, of which more later.

As Star Wars opens, R2 is rushing the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. That’s R2, not Leia. The plans are always in R2. What Leia puts into him in the early scene is only her own holographic message to Kenobi. Leia's own mission, as she says in that holographic message, is to pick up Obi-Wan and take him to Alderaan. Or so she thinks. Actually, her father just wants her to meet Kenobi, which up to this point she never has. There's a reason for that.

Obi-Wan has spent the last 20 years in the Tatooine desert, keeping watch over Luke Skywalker and trying to decide on one of the three available options: A) If Luke shows no significant access to the Force, then leave him alone in obscurity B) If Luke shows real Force ability, then consider recruiting him as a Jedi. The rebellion needs Jedi and it needs them now.But, if Luke shows any signs of turning out like his father, then: C) sneak into his house one fine night and chop his head off. With great regret but it'll save a lot of trouble later on.

Knowing this to be the case, Bail Organa (perhaps at the insistence of his wife) has found excuses not to send Leia to Ben for assessment of Jedi potential, largely for fear of option C.

To be fair to all concerned, Leia has shown no overt signs of a link to the Force. Luke on the other hand has. In his home-built hotrod aircraft, with no formal fighter pilot training and no decent instrumentation, Luke can regularly score centre-hits on two-metre targets in complex zero-altitude maneuvers. Until he attends the briefing on Yavin, Luke has no way of knowing that hardened combat pilots would consider that nearly impossible. To him it's easy. Obi-Wan, who saw Anakin's performance in the Pod Race, is nervous.

Much of Obi-Wan's behaviour in this film, and Yoda's in the next, can best be understood if they are frankly scared to death of what Luke might become. (Ben is also scared that he himself will make all the same mistakes he made with Anakin.)

Now, with the existence of the rebellion at stake, Bail Organa has finally told Leia to go see Obi-Wan and has sent her along with R2. The original plan would then be for Obi-Wan (with optional Luke and/or Leia in tow) to leave his exile and take the Death Star plans to Yavin, where they can be put to use. R2 (with Leia if Ben doesn't want to take her) would then carry on to Alderaan to maintain the cover story. The original plan does not survive contact with a large Imperial Star Destroyer.

R2 and 3PO bail out in an escape pod. Landing in vaguely the right area of Tatooine, R2's first priority is transport. He arranges to be captured by a group of Jawas and, once on board their vehicle, he makes a deal with them (possibly using emergency funds stored elsewhere on the planet) to take him where he wants to go. The Jawas refuse to go directly to Kenobi for fear of marauding Sand People but they agree to R2's second request : transport to the farm of Owen Lars. They even get to keep the purchase price if they can sell R2 and 3PO there. R2 and the Jawas shake on it and they go through with the plan.

Seeing 3PO fail to recognise the farm where he worked for 10 miserable years gives R2 a moment's amusement but, as soon as opportunity presents itself, he makes a break for it and heads for Obi-Wan. Luke and 3PO follow, which may or may not have been part of the plan.

On first seeing R2, Obi-Wan has a twinkle in his eye and calls him "my little friend". Well, he is. However, when Luke wakes up and says that R2 claimed to be owned by an Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ben blandly says "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." Ben has in fact owned several but the remark is aimed at R2 and translates as "You keep quiet. I'm not about to tell him everything just yet." Obi-Wan thinks fast and tells Luke a version of his past that does not involve a father who became a dark lord of the Sith. Ben wants to examine Luke a lot more closely before he risks telling him the real truth.

Although the Death Star plans need to get to Yavin as soon as possible, Obi-Wan has one more diversion to make first. If the Empire knows that Leia is a Rebel leader, then they also know about her father, so the whole Organa family may need immediate evacuation. Fortunately, before coming to Tatooine, R2 had already arranged transport, which is waiting at Mos Eisley under the command of the Rebellion's other chief field agent and espionage asset. Chewbacca.

Twenty years earlier, Chewbacca was second in command of the defence of his planet. He was there in the tactical conferences and there on the front lines and was a personal friend of Yoda's. So when he needed reliable people to join the embryonic Alliance, who else would Yoda turn to but his old friend from Kashykk? Given his background, it makes no sense that Chewbacca would spend the crucial years of the rebellion as the second-in-command to (sorry Han) a low-level smuggler. Unless it was his cover. In fact, Chewie is a top-line spy and flies what is in many ways the Rebellion's best ship.

The Millenium Falcon may look like a beat-up old freighter but it can outrun any Imperial ship in normal space or hyperspace, hang in a firefight with a Star Destroyer or outmanoeuvre a dozen top-of-the-line TIE fighters. It's a remarkable feat of engineering and must have cost a colossal fortune to build. How does Han come to own a ship like that? Actually, he only thinks he does – the real owner is Chewie. Half-way through Revenge of the Sith, we see the Falcon landing at the Senate building on Coruscant. If it's the same ship (which of course it is) then it was the personal transport of one of the senatorial delegations - a much more likely source to commission its design. That delegation must have later joined the Rebellion and given it the use of the Falcon. In fact, if the delegation was the one from Kashykk, then the ship may have belonged to Chewbacca as early as Revenge of the Sith.

Han is Chewbacca's front man. It's much better, and safer for him, if he doesn't know what's really going on. Chewie used to work with Lando Calrissian in a similar way but Lando wanted to settle down, so Chewie arranged for him to lose the Falcon in a card game to Han Solo, an even better choice as a partner. Han and Chewie's working method is pretty much what we see in the cantina scene: Chewie make the contacts and sets up the deals, then turns them over to Han, who haggles over the price and gives the final yea or nay. This lets Chewbacca wander the seamy underside of the galaxy pretty much at will, making contacts, gathering and passing information with no-one was the wiser, especially not Han.

It was Chewie who persuaded Han to do business with Jabba the Hutt, so that they could make regular runs to Tatooine, where Chewie could pass messages between Kenobi and Organa. When R2's urgent message came through only days before, the only way for Chewie to get back to Tatooine in time was to make the "mistake" that forced Han to dump his cargo to avoid capture. As a down side, this led to Solo's getting a death mark out on him from Jabba the Hutt. Chewie was a bit upset about that but figured they weren't going to be dealing with Tatooine for much longer.

En route to Alderaan, R2 and Chewie play stop-motion chess. This is the latest in a series of games that they've played over the years in the back rooms of space stations and cantinas across the galaxy, but this is the first time they've done it in front of their respective straight men, so they put on a big show.

Then it all goes wrong again. Alderaan has been destroyed and the Falcon is captured and brought aboard the Death Star. Han, Luke and 3PO don't know just how much trouble they're in but Obi-Wan, R2 and Chewbacca know only too well. However, Obi-Wan has a plan and seems confident of pulling it off (but then Jedi always do). Soon afterwards, while Obi-Wan is away, R2 discovers that Leia is in the detention cells and shouts out that they have to rescue her, to which Chewie can only agree. If Vader learns that he has a daughter, then they're all in very deep trouble, so Chewie does his bit to persuade Han to go along with Luke's impromptu rescue plan.

The escape nearly works but then Vader himself turns up only yards away from both of his children, one of whom is leaking Force in all directions. Obi-Wan sees what is happening and stages a distraction by letting himself die and go into the Force while the others escape.

At this point, Chewbacca suddenly realises that he's been left in charge, not only of the Death Star Plans and the survival of the Rebellion (which would be responsibility enough) but of the secret son and daughter of Darth Vader. With the Organas and Kenobi all dead, only Chewie, R2 and Yoda know who Luke and Leia really are and only Obi-Wan had any idea where to find Yoda. Chewbacca is stressed out by his new responsibilities and R2 (who keeps making crude jokes about the whole affair) is being no help at all.

Chewie's first problem is what is happening between Luke and Leia. With a psychic link they can feel but not understand, thrown together in a life-or-death escape, they are looking at each other with a sparky intensity that Chewie gradually recognises as Romantic Tension. He is no expert on human relationships but Chewie is fairly sure that that's Wrong, so he does the only thing he can think of under the circumstances - he throws Han at her. Han is not interested at first, but after a while he starts to warm to the idea with an intensity that gives Chewie new worries.

When they reach Yavin, Han opts to take the money and run and Chewie decides to go with him. Looked at in a cold light, it's for the good of the Rebellion. Even if Yavin is destroyed, there will be one agent who knows what's going on who can try to put something back together. Still, Chewie doesn't feel good about it and when Han decides to turn around and join the attack, the wookiee is all for it.

With the Death Star destroyed, Han and Luke get medals but Chewie doesn't. Actually, Leia offers him one but the wookiee turns it down. He got one of those things from Yoda about twenty years ago, but there's no way he can tell her that.

As the film ends, the three founders of the Rebellion are all gone. Bail Organa is dead, Yoda is out of contact and the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi can only talk to other Jedi. (So that would be Yoda then.) Thus, the field leadership of the rebellion has just been turned over to the daughter of Darth Vader. Chewie is hoping that someone with an official rank greater than hers will reach Yavin soon, before he has to think really seriously about option C.

© Keith Martin 2005

You can be the Biggest Loser!

Okay, here are some of the details for the planned Biggest Loser competition I am throwing together.

This thing starts on January 1st, 2012. It will run for 13 weeks, ending on March 31st, 2012. It starts on a Sunday, and ends on a Saturday. We'll have a party / awards ceremony for everyone who finishes that last Saturday.

Everyone will weigh in on Sunday each week, starting on January 1st. It is very important that you use the same scale for each weigh in. I'm not as concerned about the precise accuracy of each scale, just that the same scale is used each time, since each scale varies, but the same scale will vary the same amount each week. Once you weigh in, you'll put your weight in the Google Spreadsheet that I've set up for this purpose. Don't worry, no one else will see the spreadsheet - it will be locked down to only people participating in the competition. I think it's important to track it like this so that everyone can help motivate each other.

The entry fee of $20 can be mailed to me or you can drop it by however you need to. I would like to collect these entry fees by the end of January - I know that being right after Christmas, no one has extra cash. :) You do need to put up an entry fee to participate though. You'll have more interest if you have put some money down on it.

I would also like to challenge everyone who participates to join in running a 5K together when this is over. A 5K is a short enough distance that it could be walked if necessary, but giving everyone a target to work and train for helps with that motivation. If you have signed up for a race (just to finish...), it gives you that extra push you need at times. There aren't a bunch listed yet, but one is already scheduled on April 7th going from the Provo Temple to the Provo Tabernacle. That sounds fun, and it's all downhill! There's also one in Orem on the 14th.
It also gives you an excellent training plan, like the "couch potato to 5K" plan. I have lots of links to share on that score.

I will be throwing a blog together for this at http://reidbiggestloser.blogspot.com/
While it's titled 'reidbiggestloser', it's for family and friends! Once you are onboard, I'll grant access to post on it, so you can share tips, commiserate with each other, and encourage each other.

Finally, I'm hoping this thing gives each of us a chance to improve our health. Regardless of weight loss, getting more active and watching what we eat will make each of us have a better quality of life. I know that we're all busy, but it's time to draw a line in the sand and make some time to take care of ourselves - even if it's just a half hour each day. I would love to share some of the things I've learned over the last couple of years, going from not having run in years to running in the Red Rock Relay two years in a row.

Let me know if you want in!

A Real Sports Fan?

Today, the sports world (at least in the United States) sits riveted, awaiting that most cherished of sporting events, game 7 in a best of 7 series to determine the national (and/or world?) champions... in baseball.
I, however, am only mildly interested. Scandalous as it may be, I am not a huge fan of baseball. Yes, yes, I know. "As American as baseball and apple pie" is one of those phrases that demonstrates just how much of a national pastime baseball is. What's more American than playing some stickball on the sandlot? Or playing catch and pepper with some buddies and their well used, worn leather gloves? Most baseball fans I know have cherished memories of going to the ball park with their fathers, eating hot dogs and trying to catch a foul ball. The argument, furthered in this article, is that you aren't a real sports fan if you aren't into baseball.

The real problem is that I wasn't born a sports fan. I'm more of a convert, if you will. My father wasn't particularly into sports. Once in a great while, if a BYU football game was on TV late enough that he wasn't out working in the shop, he'd pull off his boots while sitting in the recliner, and catch the fourth quarter of the game, but it was only the slightest interest. We went to a few BYU basketball games, when one of his friends who had season tickets decided not to go and gave his tickets to Dad instead. For the most part, my Dad just wasn't a sports guy.

So how did I become a "convert"? I first discovered how much fun I could have watching sports when I was about 8 years old, and my sister became the point guard for her high school basketball team. My sister was a lethal point guard, grabbing steals, setting picks and shredding defenses. There was always something happening. A wonderful combination of team play and one on one battles. That was my first introduction into how much fun sports could be.

Next I was introduced properly to football. "You mean they are supposed to hit each other as hard as they can?" I thought in wonder. I became enamored of the explosive excitement of football games, where every play is a possible down the field breakthrough of epic proportions, running backs cutting left and right, avoiding maniac defenders, making it into the end zone in a burst of speed.

Then there's baseball. Three or four hours of game, with often just a few points scored by either team. Lots of time spent with a pitcher staring down at a batter. I didn't want an enjoyable afternoon at the park. I wanted to see points being scored. I wanted to see violent displays of aggression. To borrow from George Carlin:
"Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning."

Thus I have grown up without much appreciation of baseball, and am finding myself questioning: Am I a Real Sports Fan?

Fun and Danger at Denny's

When in my early 20's, I hung out with a group of friends who were a mix of co-workers & extended friends from those co-workers. We would get off work at around 10:30 in the evening, and go find ways to create general mayhem and chaos throughout the city for the rest of the night. Whether it was gathering to watch a Jazz game at "Momma Fuzzy's", hiking up to the giant concrete "Y" on the mountain, hiking to the hot springs, playing pool at my apartment, playing mario kart or renting out the local lazer tag arena for an hour, it was almost always in the middle of the night and it often involved a trip to one of the few 24 hour sit-down restaurants in the area.

Really, we were pretty much limited to Denny's and the truck stop over in Springville.

Now I know that lots of people have "Denny's" stories, because wherever you are, there is a Denny's nearby and it's one of the few nationwide chains that are open 24 hours. (IHOP is another in this same vein, but we didn't have one in our area at the time) Our Denny's stories are probably just a little different due to the crazy things that seemed to happen to us.

We admittedly weren't the best customers. Dipping sugar packets into a glass of water before throwing them on the big picture windows to have sugar races, while fun, was one of the things which caused us to be asked to leave. Another time, our waitress (and the night manager for the night) was none other than a woman I had arrested for employee theft from the store we both worked at. (We declined to order anything that night - didn't want the 'manager special'...) She was far from the last person we encountered that either my friend Rob or I had arrested at some point.

For some reason, my friend Jeremy attracted more than his share of attention. Once, while everyone was chatting like normal, some guys outside threw huge hunks of ice from the ground outside at the window right next to us. They had apparently felt like Jeremy had somehow offended them, and wanted him to come out and fight them.

The most memorable of all the incidents has to be the Ikkaka incident. At the time, Beavis and Butthead were pretty new on MTV. Jeremy did a great Beavis impersonation, specifically when Beavis was being Cornholio.
Jeremy was in full Cornholio when we walked into Denny's, and were greeted by the host who was wearing a name tag which had been made with one of those old school label makers, and read "IKKAKA". Jeremy, still doing the Cornholio, spots that and starts repeating it. "IKKAKA! EEE KA KA! EYE KA KA! Are you threatening me?!?!"

Ikkaka got really upset, saying "You need to knock that off!", to which Jeremy/Cornholio replied "Are you threatening me???" Ikkaka yelled back "Look, I don't care if I lose my job tonight!" He started to try to get to Jeremy, but some of us had stepped between them. Cornholio is still going full steam ahead. "I need TP for my bunghole! AAAAAaaaaAAAAHHHhhh!" This sets Ikkaka off completely. He was trying to get past us, but we got Cornholio pushed back out of the restaurant while some other restaurant employees were trying to hold him back.

We ate at the truck stop that night.

Netflix Customer Service Sucks

Have you ever tried to contact Netflix?
I hadn't before tonight, but I found a very frustrating experience awaited me.
Apparently quite some time ago, Netflix eliminated any way to e-mail them, and have only their 1-800 number to contact them about anything.
I just now wanted to contact support to file a request/complaint about the parental controls. If you haven't needed or wanted to use them, you haven't missed out. There is only a simple selection that is "R or below", "PG-13 or below", etc...

My initial problem is that even though I accept full responsibility as a parent for what my children watch, there are so many things on Netflix that appear to be a kids show but really aren't that visitors/babysitters can be confused. X-Men is a kids cartoon, but it can also be a Mature Audience/Adults Only cartoon. Imagine my kids surprise when the ask if they can watch an X-Men cartoon they found on Netflix, only to find themselves staring at very adult content that has no business being in front of children.

After researching and finding that Netflix will only accept phone calls, I called in to register my complaint. After holding for 7 minutes, I get on the phone with "Daniel", and explain my problem. I ended with the statement "It's a large enough concern to me that I am re-evaluating my membership and am considering closing my account."

Daniel responded "Can I get the name on the account?" I give him my name, and he says "okay, I have your account right here and am going to close it for you now."

?!?!

I told Daniel that I hadn't intended to actually close my account at this time, but that I was evaluating that option as a solution to my problem. He didn't care, he just wanted to get me off the phone, and if he had to close my account to do it, that was just fine with him.

So in the end, I didn't close my account, but I am even now seriously considering it. With all the garbage the kids can see even in the preview windows (look at some of the porn available under categories like "Drama", "Thrillers", and "Foreign" for examples), it just became that much harder to keep the filth out of your home. I have to decide if the benefit is worth the negatives of having it.

Once again, it is up to parents to monitor what is being displayed in their homes, no dispute. However, companies like Netflix could make this job a little easier, but they don't care and are more than willing to close your account if you complain about it.

Bitten by the nostalgia bug

I'm feeling very nostalgic today. I went to a funeral for a great man, and saw people I haven't seen for 20 years. Dennis was my scoutmaster when I was young, and I couldn't help but be swept away in the memories from my youth.

I remember that after scouts, all the boys would stay and play "night games" around his house, like hide & seek, kick the can, tag, or some variant of all of the above. He owned several houses all surrounding his business, so there was lots of space to play. We would play for hours, until late into the night. When we did finally get around to leaving, Dennis would often either give us a ride home or at least follow us as we rode our bikes to make sure we got home safely.

We also had adventurous campouts. They usually resulted in a boy named Brad Jensen getting hurt somehow. One of my personal favorites was when we went on a winter campout, and after we set up the springbar tents, we were riding tubes down a hill. Brad wanted to go even faster and higher, so he went farther up the hill, not paying attention to the fact that his path now took him directly into the tents. With everyone yelling at him to stop, Brad jumped on and laid as flat as he could, to pick up speed. He shot down the hill and as expected, straight into the back of one of the tents and disappeared underneath. We ran around to the front of the tent to see if he had come out the other side, and through the open door of the tent, we could see a Brad shape on top of the outline of the inner tube, poking up through the tent floor.

On another campout we went to the headwaters for the Duchesne Tunnel, a small shallow diversion reservoir. When we went, it was very empty because it was later in the summer. Dennis's son Tim, another boy named Matt & I set up our tent quickly, and waded out into the pond well in advance of the other boys. We walked carefully and found an underwater trench a few feet across, but very deep, running underwater across the pond in otherwise knee-deep water. We had jumped across the trench when the other boys led by Brad Jensen took off running towards us. We stood right at the far edge of the trench, saying "look, it's not deep at all!" With Brad in the lead, all the boys ran right into the trench, disappearing for a moment under the water before finding the edge of the trench and climbing out.

These memories and many more came back as I greeted Tim at his father's funeral. Dennis had taught us so many things that had made 'his' boys into men.

As I left his funeral, I drove through the old neighborhood again, looking at the houses where I had spent my youth, remembering old faces and places. It only seems like a lifetime ago because it really has been that long.

It made me realize that although I now call somewhere else home, I will always be one of those kids from the wrong side of the tracks in Provo.

Little known facts about Ted

I recently found myself staring at the edit page for my Google profile, and it had all sorts of questions to answer about myself to let everyone know more about me. Things like "describe yourself in 10 words", and "list your 'bragging rights' here"

In that same spirit, I present the following lesser known facts about myself (for which the statue of limitations have expired) to my one reader:

- I enjoy reading history and science books.
- I have never been arrested or booked into any sort of detention or correctional facility.
- I can talk like Donald Duck.
- I have permanent hairline fractures in my front teeth resulting from a parasailing accident.
- I have an irrational fear of spiders.
- I once nearly lost a pickup truck into Utah Lake.
- I caused another boy to break his collar bone in first grade, leading us to become friends for life.
- I have a lead foot.
- I have never broken a bone (except for toes that were never x-rayed or treated).
- I have driven over 150 miles each direction just to get an Original Tommy's chili burger.
- ↑↑↑ More than once.
- I have 5 kids that I love and adore.
- I have jumped off a roof holding nothing more than an umbrella.
- I once threw an alarm clock through the screen on a window of a second story window.
- I once had hair long enough to put into a 6" ponytail.
- I carve pumpkins with power tools.
- I can fix cars, but my desire to do so is inversely proportional to the necessity of doing so.
- Despite frequently wearing a t-shirt that says "No, I will not fix your computer", I probably will anyway.
- I can and sometimes do answer the question "Are you really that stupid?" with "Yes".
- I will try nearly anything. Once. (See the umbrella and parasailing entries above)
- I am married to my best friend.
- I am the man your parents warned you about.
- I will be the man who walks 5000 miles and falls down at your door.
- I have probably not seen [insert latest trendy movie here].