Ponderings and Musings

It’s 4:30 AM and I’m awake with worry about a number of things. I’m usually good at slowing down my brain and getting a decent amount of sleep at night, but I just can’t get things to slow down today. If you’ve been paying attention to the news this week, and honestly, who hasn’t, you may be losing some sleep as well.

I’m trying not to be overly concerned about the Coronavirus concerns. I’m rather lucky: I work from home, I’m not one for huge gatherings any way, and I’ve been washing my hands regularly for over five decades. But I’m worried about the older people in my life and their susceptibility to the virus. Because the Trump Administration has been downplaying concerns about the virus so as not to mess up its electability I fear there’s a number of folks walking the streets that may be carrying the virus and not even know it.

I’m reminded of the AIDS crisis back when I was a young gay. I was prudent back then and I continue to be prudent today.

I think the hardest part of dealing with the Coronavirus is this concern is on top of everything else that’s been thrown our way since the last presidential election. Impeachments, stock market fluctuations, concern around illegal activities, not being able to trust anything Trump says, the fighting between parties, and most importantly to me, the fighting between friends and family members with differing political ideologies.

I’m really tired.

I’m concerned that not getting enough sleep from worry is going to lead me to being more susceptible to getting sick, even if it’s not the Coronavirus.

At the end of the day I just want everyone to be healthy and happy and appreciated and valued and recognized for their contribution to society, no matter how big or small that contribution may be.

Keep calm. Be prudent, not panicked. Be kind.

And wash your hands.

The naming rights of the Sears Tower here in Chicago expire soon. Apparently Aon is purchasing the skyscraper, which is officially called “Willis Tower” but people don’t really call it that, and the Chicago Sun-Times ran a poll as to what the building should be called. Chicago already has an Aon Center, do we need an Aon Tower?

According to the survey everyone will still be calling it the Sears Tower. There were a couple of mentions of the United Tower, since United Airlines is the biggest tenant of the space at the moment, but Sears Tower was the overwhelming choice.

This got me to wondering where Sears would be today if they had taken their famous catalog to the internet in a timely manner. Would Sears be where Amazon is today?

I remember the excitement of seeing the yearly “Wish Book” around the holidays. I’d look at the Christmas lights selection, some of the toys, and starting the later 1970s, electronic games like Pong and the like.

Good times. What could have been.

Every self-help book promising to make you a billionaire in five days says the same thing: you must get up before sunrise to be successful. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple does it. Mel Robbins, life coach and motivational speaker, up before sunrise. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, not only gets up at the crack of dawn but then he bathes in ice cubes and walks four miles or so to work.

I am not wired this way.

I want to be successful. I want to be healthy. I want to be thin. I want people to like me. I want to be one of the cool kids. But apparently I’m destined to be a failure, fat, and unlikeable because I am really miserable when I get up in the wee hours of the morning. I try to smile. I try to focus. But my body will scream “WHY?” and my brain will constantly say the same thing, “you know you need more sleep. Remember how comfortable we were in bed?”

It’s mid February. The idiocy of Daylight Saving Time is just around the corner. Beyond this statement of it’s on my mind, I’m just going to say that I’m not looking forward to that experience.

When I get up at 6:00 a.m. I don’t want to watch videos of people working out and then try to do the same thing along with them. I don’t like working out, I don’t like lifting weights, and I’m bored out of my mind if I ‘jazzercise’ or whatever the latest fad calls for me to do. I like riding my bike, but we live in Chicago and as previously mentioned, it’s February. I’m not hipster enough to be riding my bike in this weather.

I’m ready for a nap.

I didn’t drop my first f-bomb until 7th grade. At the time I had recently inherited my grandfather’s wrist watch and I mistakenly set it on the side of a gym locker. The watch fell behind the row of gym lockers and it took some creative use of coat hangers to retrieve it. When it dropped I exclaimed frustration with an f-bomb. The gym teacher shot over to me knowing something was wrong. The issue was resolved. But I still swore from time to time.

My parents rarely swore and if they did you knew they were in a zone no one wanted them to be in. Things relaxed a little bit as we got older, but my Dad rarely ever swore. I followed his lead until I got into radio. The second radio station I worked for was owned by a husband and wife and swearing was second nature to them. It wasn’t a staff meeting unless the words were blue. As the Program Director and later Director of Operations, I quickly learned I couldn’t get my point across unless I yelled and swore. A lot.

I didn’t really enjoy that aspect of the gig.

All this being said, I’ve sworn more than I should over the 50+ years I’ve been around. Swearing has become rather commonplace and I’m still taken aback when I hear swearing on television.

I was really surprised to hear an f-bomb in a recent episode of “Star Trek: Picard”. The Starfleet Admiral dropped the adjective in the middle of an emotional response to Picard and my first thought was, “how did this person get to become an Admiral if she can’t even control the emotionality of her vocabulary”?

I’m so happy it wasn’t my beloved Captain Janeway in that role.

I feel like the use of swearing and cussing is indicative of the loss of control in American society. My friend Jeff reminds me that a focused, structured individual shouldn’t have the need to swear. I agree with this mindset and I’m trying to make a better effort to not swear anymore.

I believe we should be what we want to see in society. By tempering my language a bit perhaps I’m contributing more positive energy to society.

It might not change the world, but I can certainly try.

We are onboard United 372 from Honolulu to San Francisco. We’ll have a layover of a couple of hours at SFO and then proceed home, arriving at O’Hare just before midnight. And if the weather forecast is correct, just before more snow arrives in The Windy City.

There’s a lot of ocean down there.

The flight is off to a great start, though the flight crew does not have the flight deck communications feed to the passenger cabin turned on today. I keep hoping to hear ATC and other flight communications but I’m content just listening to the sounds of the airplane. I have a noise cancelling headset for when I’m in the cockpit but I can still hear and enjoy the low rumble of aircraft engines. Prop, prop turbo, impromptu turbo, turbine, doesn’t matter, they all sound wonderful to me.

I’m already looking forward to our next planned vacation, which is scheduled for July. We’ll be going to Oshkosh, Wis. for the EAA Airventure gathering. It promises to be a great time.

This trip to Hawaii was just what the doctor ordered. I’m feeling great and I feel ready to glide through work stuff to get to play stuff. I’m hoping to get some flight hours in soon, let’s hope Mother Nature cooperates.

I have one of the sweetest work gigs I can imagine. I am a staff manager of five, I get to play with computers all day, and I like the company I’m working for. Plus, I get to work from home. I’ve been working full-time from home for over six years. It takes discipline, both to stay focused during work intervals and to not engage in work stuff too much in the non-traditional work hours.

When I go for my morning walk I am always aware of folks rushing out of their homes into the darkened Chicago morning. They’re making their way to the nearest ‘L’ stop or to their car parked nearby. As my morning walk usually takes an hour or so, there’s a lot more vehicular traffic in the latter half of my walk versus the first half. I think about these folks driving to their work. I then start delving in philosophical territory.

I wonder what it is about American culture that compels us to live in such reliance on our cars. Folks in our neighborhood have plenty of public transportation options: the ‘L’ has plenty of stops nearby, METRA (the commuter train) passes through from southern Wisconsin to downtown Chicago, and CTA buses are everywhere. We live in a very commuter connected part of the city, it’s one of the reasons we chose this neighborhood. Yet, many folks opt to drive their car to The Loop to work in one of the skyscrapers, or they drive to a work location in another part of the city, one that may well be accessible by public transportation.

Driving a vehicle reinforces one’s sense of independence. I get that, I know that feeling, and I drive for fun more often than I probably should in this era of Climate Change and the like. And it’s Climate Change that weighs on my mind when I’m thinking about this. Does working from home really help reduce my carbon footprint? Am I burning more energy in my home than I would using public transportation to get to an office building?

I might have to do some reading up on this so I have a better grasp of the numbers. Knowledge fires up passion when I’m intrigued. And learning is better than flipping through Twitter or something.

I still wondering how these folks can drive their cars to work everyday. I really don’t enjoy driving in the city. I find it incredibly annoying. Everyone is forced to the lowest common denominator of driver ability and my patience wears thin.

I shall now embark on my commute from the living room to my home office.

Love where you live. It’s as simple as that. Even though it’s been 2 1/2 years since our relocation to the third largest city in the United States, I can not believe that we are lucky enough to live in such a wonderful place.

Yes, I grew up in the country. I lived on a farm. My high school graduating class was in the double digits. But living in the city is perfect for us and I still can’t believe I have such an honor.

Bell and Howell 16mm Movie Projector. Not my photo.

My second grade teacher was Mrs. Hayden. Situated in Room 108, Mrs. Hayden and second grade is probably the year I best remember from my elementary school years. Spelling tests included the word “deer”, when used in a sentence. We added and subtracted multiple columns of numbers. I was in the most advanced of the reading groups (there were three) and, if I’m remembering correctly, we went through two books of the Lippincott Early Reader series (maybe C and D?).

We had our desks arranged in rows and I sat in the back corner by the sink. Occasionally Mrs. Hayden would let me turn my desk sideways against the wall as I worked on my “seat work”. I wasn’t in trouble or anything, I think she just knew I needed a change of scenery once in a while. She smiled nicely and chatted with us in a way that made us feel like little adults. I remember one lunch time she told us her first name and that her husband was a barber. She lived in the next town over and drove through the snow to come to school everyday.

Mrs. Hayden knew I was a little geek; I was fascinated with the built-in vacuum system that we’d hold the blackboard erasers against on Friday afternoons to clean out the chalk dust. When the clock stopped (along with all the other clocks in the school), she let me go down to the office to turn in the attendance cards, where I watched the repairman work on the clock hanging behind Mrs. Youngs’ (the principal’s secretary) desk.

But most importantly in my second grade mind, Mrs. Hayden designated me as the person to run the Bell and Howell (or sometimes Singer) movie projector when it was time to watch 16 mm movies. At the beginning of the year she fumbled with the self-loading mechanism of the Bell and Howell projector and then I asked her if I could try loading it. I was successful and from that moment and throughout the year I ran the movie projector. I wore this as a huge badge of honor and only on one or two occasions did another person run the movie projector that year.

Perhaps my disappointment in those one or two occasions is why my desk was turned against the wall next to the sink.

Of all the teachers I had during my elementary years through the end of Grade Six, Mrs. Hayden was the one that really “got” me. I felt comfortable around her, I felt like I learned around her, and I excelled at my studies that year. She never seemed to get angry when someone was misbehaving, in fact, I don’t remember any incidents of anyone misbehaving that year.

Today our home in Chicago is situated near the old Bell and Howell factory complex where they made those movie projectors. During my walks of exercise I often walk by “Bell & Howell Lofts” and I think of Mrs. Hayden. She retired nearly 20 years ago. I found her profile on Facebook a few years ago and she is still as pretty as I remember her to be back in 1975.

I hope when she looks back on her teaching career she smiles about her experiences with all those students as much as I do when remembering how she encouraged me to be a little geek.