J.P.

The nearby city was recently named the sixth most distressed city in the United States. This title goes hand in hand with a ranking the city achieved in 2013, when it made the “Top 10 Most Miserable Cities in the United States” list. Consistency is something that cities should strive for but these particular accolades are probably not doing this area any favors.

Looking for a little pick me up, I decided to research the most modern cities in the world. Surprisingly, out of the Top 10 Cities that are considered the most modern by this list, only one of them is in the U.S. and that was San Francisco. So I sat back and reflected and realized that while U.S. cities do have a lot of charm, we’re really not that advanced here.

This is a bit disappointing to me.

I feel like society, and as an extension of the will of society, our political process is holding us back from our full potential. It seems like we’ve lost the spirit of team work and we are more interested in breaking off into factions focused on their own interests instead of advancing our country as a whole.

Modern cities worldwide have WI-FI available. High speed rail is everywhere. Skylines have green spaces on top of their buildings. The societies of these modern metropolises embrace progressive thinking around societal issues (family benefits, same sex marriage, etc.)

They’re looking forward, not clinging onto the past.

I’ve been following the flight of Solar Impulse, a solar powered airplane that is making a voyage around the world. There’s no fossil fuel involved with this aircraft, it is completely powered by the sun. This morning it took off in the early morning darkness, with absolutely no fuel on-board, only the batteries charged by the sun.

Yesterday, Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Transport concept had its first test in the Nevada desert. When this idea comes to full fruition, the Hyperloop will transport passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about 30 minutes.

These achievements are beautiful things, but we need to band together as a country and stop all of this divisive bickering and shun the negativity that is pervading our society. Honestly, there shouldn’t be a list of the most distressed or miserable cities. Instead of touting these articles for click-bait and ad revenue (notice I didn’t link to them), our efforts should be focused on moving into the future in a positive direction.

Maybe then we’ll catch up with the rest of the world.

With our regular viewing of new 2015-2016 TV episodes coming to a close with the season finale of “Madam Secretary” (which was awesome), Earl and I have been searching for a television series that will keep us engaged, yet not too bogged down with negativity over the summer. Of course we could entertain the thought of just keeping up with the elections, but quite frankly I am so burned out on what is happening with these campaigns I am currently at the point where I want to check box D, “None of the above” and just be over with it.

We were spinning around randomly on Netflix when we came across a series that we both had heard a lot about but had never really made an investment. That series is “Scandal”.

I knew Shonda Rhimes was involved in some way with the show, so it was safe to assume that it would fit a certain formula that is common in Shondaland (story arcs over multiple episodes, a semi-serious storyline, a funnier storyline, a storyline that advances the season arc, etc). So we sat down and dialed up Season 1 Episode 1.

We really enjoyed it. I won’t say that we loved it but we liked it a lot and it showed promise.

Tonight we watched Episode 2 and now we are invested. I like the idea of an “outsider” being involved with governmental affairs. I like the plot twists and turns. The show feels familiar without feeling overdone. Kerry Washington as lead character Olivia Pope is like able and relatable. The only distraction I’ve had with the show thus far is the Quinn Perkins character played by Katie Lowes. I can’t shake the fact that she seems like an Ally McBeal knock-off with her stuttering, lawyer-esque ways. All that’s missing is a dancing baby.

I understand that “Scandal” is currently in its fifth season, so we have 100 or so shows to watch to catch up on the program but I think we can make that happen over the summer.

At least we didn’t resort to reality shows. Or the election. Or both.

Ambience.

I’ve discovered that late in the evening is not my best blogging time. I read about humorists, bloggers and the like writing their best work in the middle of the night, but my brain doesn’t seem to be wired for that sort of creativity at this hour. I think I’m more of a lunch hour writer. Back when I worked in an office not far from the house, I would dash home during my lunch hour, have a bite to eat and write a blog entry. When I commuted 55 miles to the office, I would sneak off to a parking lot near the local Dunkin’ Donuts and write while sitting in the Jeep. Things were happening around me then and I felt motivated to share my life experiences through words. I enjoy writing things down.

Now that I work at home full time, I find it a little more difficult to be creative when it comes to writing. I find this a little surprising, because as I recall, many authors work in their home offices. Erma Bombeck had an old door balanced on two shelves and some sort of typewriter that she enjoyed while writing in her bedroom. I’ve read that Jennifer Saunders writes her scripts in long hand. I know technology blogger Paul Thurrott writes from home, though I don’t know how his home office is set up.

I’m currently sitting at the kitchen table, typing on my iPad Pro using an application called Ommwriter. I haven’t used this application in a number of years and I have to admit that I’m surprised that it works on this latest technology from Apple. The application hasn’t been updated in a couple of years. The latest update has all new music, but these new tracks fill the intent of the original in that I feel like writing when I have these ambient sounds resonating in my head. The shifting colors of the display behind my words are also inspiring.

I think I have a novel or two bouncing around in my head. When I go for my morning walk before work I try to go along a route that has little chance of becoming a spectator sport, because I sometimes work out science fiction storylines out loud. Some of my musings are a continuation of a story I have read in the past, or a tangent off a familiar television show or movie. I’m not interested in rebooting or making my own; I’m more of a fan of continuing an established universe. I don’t know if I’ll ever write these story ideas down. Perhaps I should just sit down, crank up the ambient tunes and just let the words flow through my fingers. I can never thank my mother enough for teaching me how to properly type when I was still in elementary school. 40 years later I can still type over 100 words a minute. Typing my words comes naturally to me.

Maybe I try too hard.

Earl and I are at our local Panera again tonight. Many of the local restaurants in this area are closed on Sunday and those that were open today were focusing on Mothers’ Day festivities with brunches and the like. We were in Syracuse earlier today for a lovely brunch with my Mom, sister and nephew, but we wanted something small and relatively healthy so we opted for a quick bite at the local Panera. It is busier than I expected it to be.

I’ve been catching up on Facebook today. Amongst all the wonderful photos of folks with their mom or memorial photos posted along the same theme, there was a post from a local class mate talking about the school board’s plan to put some sort of security wall across the lobby of the elementary school I attended. This school was built in 1939 and was built in Art Deco stylings that were popular at that time. The lobby has marble walls, a grand staircase that fanned in two directions to an overlook from the second floor above. Hundreds of photos have been taken on that staircase. There are glasses trophy cases set into the walls that frame the lobby. Walking into that lobby is like taking a step back into time.

Except now the current school board feels it needs a security wall down the middle of it. To the best of my knowledge there has never been any sort of threat against the school, it’s just what we do in the United States today. We overreact to an isolated incident and convince ourselves that if it happened there, it’s going to happen here. Whenever I hear a grand speech of how Americans are resilient and strong and the best citizens in the world, I have to smirk and roll my eyes, because that is hardly the case. I can’t imagine that folks in other societies live in constant fear of some sort of manufactured boogey man.  Yes, there was an awful school shooting in an elementary school a couple of years ago. The news media, in their constant quest to gain as much ad revenue as possible by replaying the same horrific, exaggerated news stories over and over again, is successfully reprogramming the American populace to be fearful. Fearful of everything. What’s in your food? What are your neighbors up to? What is that other passenger on an airline flight writing in his diary?

Did you hear about the American Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Syracuse that was delayed a couple of days ago? A woman passenger saw a “non-American man” writing math equations in a notebook and was convinced he was a terrorist. He was removed from the flight, questioned by authorities who realized that he was a math professor and then allowed to fly on to Syracuse. The passenger that made the claim was held back for a later flight. Ignorance at its finest.

I am so tired of hearing about fear and all the terrible things that might (but most likely won’t) happen to me and/or my family. People don’t let their kids play outside anymore. Walls and gates and prison like tactics are being added to school buildings. Guards are being posted at shopping mall entrances. People are looking suspiciously at fellow citizens because they’re a little bit different. How long will it take to “chip” our kids?  If this is what we feel freedom is about in the 21st century then I want to go back to the 20th century where we were a happier place and weren’t so scared of everything. I can’t help but thing we are doing things wrong. Exaggerated response to fear is only multiplied when it’s passed from generation to generation.

When does the pendulum swing back toward rational thought?

While I was out for my morning walk I couldn’t help but notice the diversity of traffic on our road.

Today several people have said to me, “May the Fourth Be With You”. While I was tempted to reply, “and also with you”, on each occasion, I opted to show my true allegiance with “Live Long and Prosper”.

I’m not much of a Star Wars fan. I haven’t seen the latest installment of that machine. Honestly, I’ll probably opt out of the latest installment of Star Trek as well, as the reboots don’t really seem to be in the spirit of Roddenberry’s “Star Trek”.

Earl and I are currently sitting in the local Barnes and Noble, which is pronounced “Barnes and Nobles” in these parts. This utterly wrong pronunciation was most likely inspired by the mispronunciation of Ames as “Ameses”. It was easier to just say “Westons”, even though they closed.

I’m digressing.

It’s the fourth of May and to celebrate reading and books, Barnes and Noble has an R2-D2 running around the Nook corner chattering away in something that only an Android phone can understand. Every once in a while a child screams in delight, another child smells like they’re dumping in the diaper, but by God, May The Fourth Be With You.

I don’t even know what May The Fourth Be With You means. Do they say that in the English speaking countries in Europe, where they most likely say it’s the Fourth of May? Does Canada say the fourth of May or May 4th? If you think about it, the European style makes sense because the word order is hierarchical: date, month, year. The date is the smallest time unit, followed by the month, followed by the year.

I like orderly things like that.

There is a man wearing a fedora working on a PC. He is running Windows 7 and I know this because I can see his PC on the network. I was going to leave him a love note on his desktop praising his chapeau of choice but I decided I didn’t want to flip him out and have him lose his cool. The fedora keeps him chilled looking.

Earl is trying to watch a video clip by holding the speakers of his iPhone up to his ear. I think it makes it harder to see the screen that way but to each his own.

Perhaps R2-D2 can bring over some headphones.

We have several acres of wooded area behind our house. Our patio looks out over the woods. Our kitchen window looks out over the woods. When I sit at the kitchen table, I look out over the woods. I like looking at the woods.

Over the past week or so our neighbors (two houses over) have been cutting down trees and doing a lot of work out in their portion of the woods. This morning I became a little bit alarmed when I realized it looked like they were prepping the land to build something. The area they have cleared is large enough for a decent sized McMansion. If my suspicions come true, the kitchen table will look out over some woods and the back of a McMansion.

I am not amused, not amused at all.

Now, we live in a good sized house that was built in the latter half of the 1990s. It sits on two acres of property that isn’t nearly as roomy as our old homestead of 38 acres but I can deal because I can see out into the woods. If the house was located on one of those McMansiony streets, I’m sure our home would have no issue with fitting into the McMansion crowd.

In all honesty, I have no reason to complain about someone building out in the woods because our house is situated behind our neighbors’ house, and when they look out their kitchen window they most likely see our house. And for the first several years of living here, I felt bad about that, because I felt like we were intruding on their space. The only saving grace was that our neighbors are friendly and I can see out into the woods behind our house.

I can not fathom why anyone would want to live in row of McMansions. I have wondered over the years what would possess a young couple to dream about living in a row of homes in a cheaply built house that wasn’t exactly like but well coordinated with the houses around it. These McMansion rows are different than the post-WWII suburban housing developments; at least back then there were trees, the roads had curves to them and there was some semblance of character to said developed area, but lately folks in these parts have been building straight rows with every house lined up perfectly in some sort of Stepford Synchronization.

All that’s missing in that photo is matching mini-vans in assorted drab hues.

I couldn’t find anything in the local Town Board Meeting minutes that would indicate that there is something major in the way of construction going on in the woods, but it really looks like we are going to have something nearby and whatever springs up in the woods is going to be an impediment to the view of the woods that I thoroughly enjoy.

Until I can determine what’s going up back there I’m going to have to do my best Mrs. Kravitz impersonation and keep an eye on the progress.