November 2011

So last night the fire alarm went off during the NBC Nightly News. Brian Williams, the anchor, was the perfect professional as the alarms went off, barely missing a beat with his story on the bankruptcy of American Airlines. As the alarm went off the second time during the newscast, he calmly reminded viewers that they knew they were in no danger and that’s why they were no evacuating. Watching the video on YouTube, I was very impressed with the way that Mr. Williams handled it, knowing that he wasn’t in danger and how he just continued on without losing it on the air. As a former broadcasting professional, I probably would have been distracted and my voice would have sounded funny as I tried to compensate for the extra noise. That’s why I don’t anchor NBC’s Nightly News.

Since this story has been all over the place this morning, I noticed some of the comments that folks made over on Huffington Post. It’s not often that I go over to that site, I really don’t like their style of journalism over there and I can find more balanced news elsewhere. I was surprised at the number of people who said that Brian Williams set a bad example for the public by not immediately leaping up and running out of the studio with his hands failing. I say I was surprised by these comments but I guess in reality I’m really not. Some people enjoy hysterics. Mr. Williams, a former volunteer fireman, does not. Plus, as he stated during the news broadcast, they knew they were not in danger because they were testing the fire alarm system.

I got to thinking about this a little bit on the drive into work. I have been in several places over recent years where the fire alarm has started blaring in a public space, for example, the local mall. No one flinched, no one looked for an exit, everyone continued shopping as if nothing was going on. Blaring klaxons, flashing strobe lights, automatic closing doors; all of these were ignored because people were on a mission, they were shopping, they didn’t see flames so they continued on. I must admit that I did the same. Like much of the American public, I think I have been desensitized to these alarms because the damn things ring a false alarm on so many occasions.

Earl and I made a trip to Wisconsin a few years back and on each of the first three nights of this five night trip we had to evacuate the hotel (which was a different hotel each time) because the fire alarms were going off for no reason. People get used to these things. The blaring sounds, the strobe lights, they’re all for naught when they cry wolf so many times. I remember fire drills back during my school days. Those bells never rang unless they meant business (a fire or a drill). We didn’t have flashing strobe lights or slamming doors or announcements coming over a speaker, the fire bell simply went clang clang clang clang clang (pause) (repeat). It was rare that you heard that clang but when you did you got your butt out of the school in an orderly fashion. The same goes with the Emergency Broadcast System. If the old-style two-tone alarm wasn’t proceeded by “This is a test…”, then you figured that the local nuclear plant was melting down and you got under your desk and covered your neck to ride it out. People made sure that these alarms didn’t ring for no reason. False alarms were avoided. It’s not until we upgraded to the latest and greatest technology that we started to tolerate false alarms. Because we put up with bugs in our computer programs and crappy, tinny sounding phone calls over a our cell phones, we expect mediocrity from the devices that are designed to save our lives because they “cry wolf” more than anything else.

Now I know that I’m somewhat contradicting myself in this post. I praise Brian Williams for keeping his cool and continuing on while the fire alarm blared and I make fun of the people that say he should have evacuated immediately while on the other hand I scold folks for not leaving when the mall fire alarm went off. This is all a product of our conditioning. We are being conditioned to stock up on milk and bread and flail our hands in the air when an alarm is needlessly fired off to warn us of a “winter storm” (when much less than a foot of snow is expected) and on the other hand, we hear so many false fire alarms in public spaces today due to poorly manufactured and executed equipment that we just ignore the damn things. How do we turn this around? No clue. I’m hoping that the fabled reboot of civilization at the end of next year will give us some answers.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So I have this habit of coming up with some brilliant topic that gets me all fired up and knowing how I’m going to express this brilliance in the blog. These flashes of inspiration usually occur in the early morning hours when I am getting ready for work. I try to remember to write down what I am thinking so that I can formulate them into a coherent dialog when I write my blog. I use electronic gadgets to keep track of all of this for me; I usually jot something down in Evernote or OmniFocus, since I use both software packages for personal and business needs. I tend to use Evernote as a bucket to catch whatever is falling out of my head.

This morning I neglected to do this. And now all I can remember is that I had two things I could have written about. I can’t tell you what they are, though. They’ll probably manifest themselves as a blog entry later in the week and I won’t even make the connection. I’ll be too busy engaging my ADD elsewhere.

Even though I can’t remember what I wanted to blog about this morning, I can tell you that I remember thinking that I am starting to become a bit of a morning person. I think this is why I have these blogging ideas in these early hours; it’s because I am turning into one of those older people that goes to bed at 9:00 p.m. and wakes up in time to see the sunrise. I used to be one of those guys that stayed up all night and went to sleep with the sunrise, but this is definitely changing. I must be getting old.

I can also tell you what I dreamed about last night, but it would make everyone involved blush. I know the dream took place in my old stomping grounds of Jamestown, New York, but the rest of it needs to be filed away in the dream journal and out of sight. I have always had this small fear of people figuring out what really goes on inside my head and sometimes dreams are just too revealing. So instead I show little bits and pieces here, well within the censorship range I have arbitrarily set.

I’d be such a hoot on an analyst’s couch.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So today is Black Friday. I think it’s called Black Friday because this is the day that the retailers fall back into the black on their All Important Ledger. Apparently they have been running in the red for the entire year up until today when they magically sell enough stuff to produce enough profit to fall back into the black. This pleases the Lord.

You can tell economic times are tough because the retailers are having to work extra hard at getting back into the black this year. Times are so tough for them that they decided to make Black Friday last more than 24 hours by starting up on Thursday night. That’s right, forget the time gathered around the post-dinner table engaging in discussion or a board game with the family, we are now suppose to bundle up and get ourselves to the Wal*mart before it’s Friday so we can get a head start on the deals that are arriving before Friday for Black Friday. Move. That. Money. Buy. That. Stuff.

I’m already entertaining requests from my fans as to what I want for Christmas. I haven’t really thought about it a great deal, though I think I may have suggested a few ideas to Earl over the past week. There is a rumor that I want an iPad2 and possibly an iPhone 4S, but there is a part of me that wants to go without getting a big ticket technology item for Christmas, just to say that I did it. Besides, everything I have works fine. My iPhone is able to distract me from real life without a problem and I can blog anywhere my heart desires with my first generation iPad. Ironically, I am using my MacBook Pro to blog during my lunch hour today, but that’s only because I left the bluetooth keyboard in the Jeep and that’s in getting serviced, so I’m driving the Durango and I wanted to be able to type on an actual keyboard instead of just a picture of one. I find it very hard to write blog entries on my iPad. I don’t think it would be an easier on my iPad2 since the pictures of the keyboard are identical. Damn me for learning to do something other than hunt and peck. What was I thinking?

When Earl and I dropped the Jeep off at the early-bird station at the dealership last night, we took the opportunity to swing through the Big Box Mecca to see what sort of lines were forming at the Big Box Stores. There was an encampment at Best Buy that went the entire length of that side of the shopping center. The line formed at the front entrance to Best Buy, at the end of the building, and snaked along the entire plaza beyond PetSmart, Salon Aida, some sort of dental clinic, a double-wide TJ Maxx and Michaels’. People were bundled up in their eskimo gear and sitting on lawn chairs. All to save $100 off one of two laptops (because there’s never more than that in stock) that’s probably going crap out and be so bogged down with “value added software” that you’ll want to chuck the thing out the window in a month anyway. The Wal*mart had setup some corrals out front but there wasn’t very many people to be seen.

This is what our Thanksgiving has come to, nothing more than a precursor to the more important Black Friday. It’s kind of sad.

I heard on the news this morning that one of the other Wal*mart Supercenters in the area (we have four within a 15 mile radius) had to summon the cops because of shoppers fighting over cell phones. There’s nothing that shares that Christian sentiment of “Merry Christmas” better than a good kick in the teeth.

Back to the gift idea requests I have been getting. I know that people want to give me a gift in the name of sharing a delight and the spirit of the season and that is very much appreciated. You know what I really want? A donation to the Ali Forney Center in New York. If you feel the need to give me something, give me a card with some nice words and a bottle of after shave or something. Don’t dazzle, just share.

If more people did that, I bet our hearts, instead of our wallets, would soar on Black Friday.

So here in the United States it’s a short work week unless you’re unfortunately working for a money hungry retail establishment that lacks common sense. I was holding out hope that the Christmas decorations would not be installed in some of my favorite haunts until Friday, but the Dunkin’ Donuts I visit on a daily basis has officially decked the halls. The folks behind the counter still get my order without me actually asking for it, so they can be forgiven.

The short work week is not as short as it was prior to this job, because the company does not recognize Friday as a holiday. I kinda find this surprising, but when you’re working for a large corporation I guess anything goes. I am working on Friday. I hope to feel inspired while I’m doing it too. At the very least I hope I am able to catch up on things that have been falling to the wayside. I’d be much more productive if I could telecommute. Since all I do is work on a computer and engage in conference calls, telecommuting is certainly a viable option and one where I would actually be much more productive, but some don’t see it that way. Their loss.

So we are plugging along during this short work week and pretending that we are going to get things accomplished when in fact it’s quite impossible to do so because half the people are burning off PTO (Personal Time Off) that is set to expire by the end of the year. It’s also “Holy Week” in these parts; the name of the week has nothing to do with spirituality, but rather all of the holes that are being shot through things in the woods as deer season has officially opened. I like being in the woods at this time of year, but I don’t like the idea of shooting at an animal that can’t shoot back. Now if the deer were armed I would find that sporting. Conversely, if the human wrestled the deer to the ground, then that would be sporting as well. I like sports that are evenly matched, Sarah Palin’s hunting helicopter be damned. But, to each his own, I guess. At least there’s food on the table.

So while we are suppose to be focused and whatnot this week, all I can think about is pie, candied yams, homemade applesauce and cheesecake. Closing my eyes I can conjure up memories of the smells of Grandma Country’s house at Thanksgiving. I’m very lucky that many of those same smells, with their own spin of course, come from the kitchen on Thanksgiving right at home. I’m a lucky husband.

Of course, because it’s a short week, I close my eyes to conjure up these things in my head whilst sitting in front of the computer at work, doing my best to be productive. These things happen.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad