Fun and Games Dept
Happiness.
One more look at our 2016 Christmas Tree.
Earl, Jamie and I took down all the Christmas directions around the house and packed them up neatly for next year’s festivities. I have a little more to do once things thaw a bit, some of our outside ornaments are frozen to the ground or completely buried with snow in the yard. I felt a bit melancholy taking the decorations down this year. This is the first time in about five years that I was sad to see the holiday season come to an end.
We did the holidays our way this year, spent time with family and friends and just enjoyed our little chosen family here in the snowy parts of Upstate New York. I am without complaint. That is rare.
It’s a nice feeling.
20.
Yesterday Earl and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. This is the anniversary of our original commitment ceremony, held on 12/26/96, at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. We exchanged our wedding rings and shared our commitment vows with one another with Earl’s youngest brother Rick and his girlfriend, later wife, Helen at our side. One of the cool things about being in a same sex marriage these days is that many of old school couples have multiple anniversaries to celebrate: original commitment and then the legal wedding. We throw in a couple of other anniversaries (first date, when I proposed, etc.) just to keep the merriment alive all year long, but December 26 is the biggie for us.
Isn’t that the idea of a solid marriage, keeping the merriment alive all year long? As a gay couple we are already outside of convention. With a chosen family, the three of us are outside of convention. But honestly, the only norm that I’m looking to adhere to is the norms Earl and I have defined for our marriage. We have a custom-made marriage and that’s why we’re able to celebrate our 20 year anniversary together.
I look forward to continuing the celebration for another 20 years. He’s my best friend and we were meant to find each other.
It’s a great gig when you find it.
Snow.
About a foot of snow fell yesterday before the overnight temperature dropped to -7°F. The National Weather Service just released another Winter Weather Advisory for tonight, with another six to eight inches of snow expected.
Mother Nature has gone full tilt with the weather and that’s OK by me, though I’m bummed that it keeps me on the ground. It’ll be the perfect weather for picking up our Christmas tree tonight. And I’m really happy that we bought a new snowblower.
But a quick check of the calendar confirmed one thing: it’s still autumn.
White Christmas.
Earl and I just finished our annual viewing of 1954’s “White Christmas”. Winds are whipping outside with gusts up to 35 MPH. We had nearly a foot of snow in the driveway when I ran the snowblower this evening after work.
Watching “White Christmas” puts me in a wonderful mood. It’s such a wonderful classic. Classy. A rosy snapshot of the times.
I can’t help but wonder if there are any classic movies being made today. Are people going to be sitting around 60 years from now watching any of the movies offered to audiences today?
Emergency.
Earl and I were driving in a rural part of the county when every iDevice within our reach vibrated, squealed and displayed this.
Notice there is very little information contained in this noisy, urgent alert. There was apparently an emergency in the area we were driving through. I tuned the radio to a local station and they were offering up an ad on mattresses. Since we were headed in the general direction of the local nuclear power plants, I was considered that perhaps something was melting down. Briefly I thought that Russia was hacking into our emergency alert system. For a moment I considered that perhaps PEOTUS was doing something stupid.
With no answers from the radio, I pulled over and searched Twitter, where tweets were starting to appear from our general area asking the same question that I was seeking to answer: what was the emergency and why was there a mobile device blast alerting everyone about this vague crisis?
I found little in the way of answers on Twitter and decided that nothing awful was happening, so we continued on our trip. Earl monitored Twitter and Facebook for a few moments and we deduced that there was a warehouse fire about 45 miles from our location at the time. Later, the local television station updated their Facebook status with a notification that the alert was meant for the small village where the warehouse was located and that it was inadvertently sent to every mobile device in the county.
Mistakes happen, I get that. When an error was discovered, another blast should have been sent indicating that the first was a false alarm. But no such thing happened, we were on our own to discover the source of this very vague alert. Not the best way to notify the populace of an emergency.
Mobile device blasts like this should contain the nature of the alert and the action required. Alerts like this should be reserved for instances where evacuation is necessary: an incoming nuclear warhead, a terrorist attack, an F5 tornado wiping out towns or a potential meteor strike. To the best of my knowledge from all the research I’ve since done since this alert blast, there was no evacuation of the small town where this fire was taking place. No one was asked to move.
Back in the day the Emergency Broadcast System made a wailing noise that got your attention. It made your hair stand on end. The newer Emergency Alert System (the one with the “duck farts” noise) does not grab one’s attention in the same way. The EAS is used for every weather warning, every threat of snow and with the lack of an attention grabbing sound, results in the message being easily ignored. Repeatedly using the EAS once or twice a month results in apathy.
If we are going to have this 21st century way of alerting citizens of a dire emergency, we need to use this new system with caution and reservation. Overuse results in ineffectiveness. And with undoubtedly turbulent times in the coming months (see the Presidential election results), having emergency related technology we can count on for information and urgency is important.
Let’s step away from the Chicken Little mentality.
Public.
I am at our local Panera playing on my MacBook Pro while enjoying an iced tea and an oatmeal raisin cookie. After working from home all day I felt the need to get out and be amongst people for a little bit. This helps me maintain my optimal level of insanity.
I’ve mentioned before that our local Panera is quite loud. The ambiance does not have that coffee shop feeling that Digital Nomads seek out, this location has more of a McDonalds Playland quality to it. The internet connection isn’t awful and I was able to score a booth that discourages folks from looking at my screen so I am content.
I’m traveling with my MacBook Pro (in lieu of my iPad) for the first time in a while. I’m finding that I still prefer to have a laptop for writing versus the “convenience” of my iPad. The keyboard is better on the MacBook Pro but more importantly I don’t feel confined in creativity like I do when I’m using my iPad. Perhaps it’s because I have a million thoughts going at once but the iPad really wants me to do one task at a time at full screen levels. I’ve never felt comfortable with that for the long term.
I like looking at the big picture from all angles.