Earl and I watched “Star Trek: Insurrection” this evening. I believe it was the first time watching the full movie since its release in 1998. Tonight’s viewing is part of our recent tradition of watching a Star Trek movie on Sunday evening; we’ve been watching them in order.
While there were mixed reviews for the film back when it was released, I have to say it’s one of my favorites of the franchise. The strife isn’t so thick to be depressing. The movie feels like a natural extension of The Next Generation TV show. And the idea of a society that has shunned technology to go back to their “basic” roots is appealing to me.
One of the hardest things about watching these movies is knowing they were produced before these turbulent times. They were filmed before Y2K, 9/11, and of course an era when Trump was suppose to be taken seriously. I see an innocence in the production that one does not see in modern films. So many of our entertainment outlets have been spun in a more grim direction. I really felt hopeful after watching “Insurrection”, but then I took a peek at Twitter and was reminded that we are solidly in the 21st century with all its Second Dark Ages drama.
I closed the Twitter app. I’ll probably be back in a couple of days.
While I’m sure I can’t get any of my family to agree to this, I would really cherish the idea of buying an old farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, but still within reasonable distance of civilization. Fires in a fireplace, plenty of land around, and being able to keep to ourselves. We’d burn incandescent lights and try to keep things simple.
How I’d love the ability to get away from all this. Even for just a little while.
I miss the hustle and the bustle of living in a big city. I miss mingling human energy with other humans. The train platforms are quiet. The sidewalks are quiet. The scurry is limited to avoiding others on the street lest you be exposed to COVID-19.
The information is relentless. The news is non-stop. Too much of it is not good. What I’d give to see another state or another country right now.
“If you see something, say something” has been replaced with dire warnings of getting too close to our fellow citizens. We should all be in this together, doing our best to lift each other. But we’re too divided, led by division, ripping each other down.
This isn’t the way it’s suppose to be. None of this is proper. None of this is correct. We can do better.
Since the beginning of the pandemic we’ve been relying on Amazon and other online shopping services for our household needs. One of the neat things about living in a major city is that we often will receive our order the next day, especially when ordering from Amazon. This sort of immediacy is nifty.
However, as it becomes apparent as to how much money Jeff Bezos is making off of these pandemic circumstances, and coupling this with the fact that he’s not really allowing that wealth to trickle down to those on the Amazonian front lines, the ones that really get our deliveries to us the very next day, I’ve started focusing on shopping local.
I’m what I would call an “avid shaver”. After years of having a beard and/or mustache, I settled into a clean shaven routine when I became a private pilot. In many ways this is in remembrance of a discussion I had with my father back at the big airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1984. As we were walking about the airfield, he mentioned that many pilots opt to be well groomed, clean shaved, and with a structured, disciplined demeanor. While I’m sure much of this is due to many pilots of that generation having been in the military at one point or another, I admitted he had a point. Being a good pilot involves a certain amount of calm, cool, discipline, and structure, and outward appearance sometimes reinforces these qualities.
As a clean shaven private pilot, I’ve been purchasing “artisan” shaving products for the past decade or so. I have a Merkur Progress double-edged or “safety” razor. Men in the 1940s through the early 1970s typically shaved with these guys. 10 blades cost less than $2.00. Compare that to your Gillette plastic multi-bladed razor. Back in the early 2000s I purchased shaving brush at a mall kiosk and it has lasted me all these years. I like trying various soaps and creams.
Enter Shavenation.com. I could easily order my shaving supplies through Amazon, but with my focus on local or at least non-big-corporately owned entities, I opted to give “Geofatboy” and his Shavenation electronic storefront a try. He’s located in the suburbs of Chicago, actually just down the street from Chicago Executive Airport, one of the airports I fly out of, and Geofatboy has a bunch of instructional videos online. I placed a small order to give his business a try and it arrived in two days, was well packaged, and met all of my expectations. One of the items in the package was a sampler pack of shave creams from Geo F Trumper; yesterday I used “Spanish Leather” for my shave and this morning I used “Sandalwood”. I’ll probably try something a little more adventurous tomorrow.
Taking a few extra moments every morning to whip up a nice lather with cream and a brush and then slowly shave with a double-edge razor is my meditative and quiet time. The practice centers me and gets me on a productive start to the day. I’m happy to have found Shavenation.com and I’ll probably spend too much money in the future on shaving supplies.
In the fall of 1978, at age 10, I asked my mother what hell was and how that worked with reincarnation. My mom responded that she thought we were in hell right now and if we get it right this time, we won’t have to reincarnate again and go to heaven.
I started my first “corporate” job on my 20th birthday. After a brief data entry position in Maynard (which I completed way ahead of schedule), I was hired at Digital Equipment Corporation in the Corporate Employee Communications Department in Concord, Mass. For the first couple of months I worked as an Administrative Secretary to the lead of the department. I was hired by one her liaisons, as she was on a one-month sabbatical at the time and the woman working in the support position had moved to another part of the company. After a few months I was moved to the position of “Department Coordinator III”. At 20 years old I provided tech support for the entire group of users. As communicators of varying degrees, they produced periodic newsletters, electronic communications, and other media based communiques for the entire company of over 200K employees. At the time, Digital was the 2nd largest computer company in the world.
I was hired into the position through the temp agency Manpower; I had aced their CBT, or Computer Based Training, in less than four hours. It was meant to be a week long course. They couldn’t believe I was finished with the course when I asked them what was next on the agenda during training week. They had me take a test and when I aced it they slipped me into the position that had opened up with the intent of moving me to a more technical position as soon as it became available.
At 20 years old and with little in the way of a college education, people were amazed at my “knack” for computers. In my spare time I had already written a point of sale program that ran on the Commodore 64, TRS-80 Model II, and the Apple III, and had made a little bit of cash by selling it as shareware on various Bulletin Board Services across the country. Even though I was a geek through and through, I had very little knowledge in the way of the corporate world. I knew I had to wear a tie, shave everyday, and be as focused and humble as possible. I look back and I was a mess. Once in a while I’ll see a rerun of “Murphy Brown” and her disasters of temporary secretaries and think that must have been based on me. I was much more comfortable when I moved into the tech support role, though I did set alarms off more than once by messing around on the server clusters after hours.
At Digital (we never called it “DEC”) the motto was it was easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. And I used that to my advantage. A lot. I still live by that today.
I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since I took the opportunity to leave the company and pursue whatever life had next on my agenda. Occasionally I’ll have dreams of living and working back in Massachusetts, settling into my old role in my old cubicle, armed with today’s knowledge but still using the old VT-330 terminal connected to the server cluster on the first floor. In these recurring dreams I’m often laughing with my former co-workers. I like to think that one of my strongest assets was to make my co-workers laugh, even when stress levels were through the roof. My weirdness wasn’t obnoxious, it was humorous, and if any of my former co-workers remember me, I hope they remember me like this: “He had a weird knack for figuring out problems by looking for patterns. And he was so pleasant to work with”.
A lot of what I know today as a corporate citizen in the 21st century is rooted in what I learned in Concord, Mass. in the late 1980s. I don’t know what happened to that old team, but if I ever get the chance, I’d like to say thank you to Anne, Jim, Richard, Jennifer, Meg, Ann, Janine, Kate, Dawn, Barbara, Ellin, Donna, Beth, Marilyn, Carol, Karen, Marie, Erline, and Marny for all your support, your patience, and your knowledge.
You helped me find my path. And even 30 years later, you make me smile as if it was just yesterday.
My husband and I watched “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix last weekend. It’s a documentary about the effects of social media, and more importantly information capitalism, on society and how it’s basically ripping apart our social construct. The focus of “The Social Dilemma” is on Facebook, but it also talks about other platforms such as Twitter and Instagram and addresses the major issues around Google.
After watching “The Social Dilemma”, Earl took Facebook and Facebook Messenger off of his phone. I had done the same months ago, but had recently put it back on, albeit sandboxed to the best of my ability so that it wouldn’t have access to my location or contact data or push notifications or anything.
I need to follow the lead of my husband. He is a very smart man. I removed Facebook and Facebook Messenger from my phone this morning. Again.
I decided to go a step further and remove Facebook from my iPad. Before doing so, I posted the photo above without a caption. I doubt anyone will notice.
Aside from the manipulation and raping of personal information that is inherent to Facebook’s business model, I came to realize that Facebook has pushed too much information about my family and friends in my direction. Last night I had a cousin push a fake video edited to make Joe Biden look like he was barely coherent to her husband and for some reason Facebook felt I needed to see that interaction. Seeing activity like this has caused me to question the moral foundation of too many friends and members of my family. Fake video aside, there have been many comments about Joe Biden’s stuttering. How many of the folks making fun of Joe have made fun of me behind my back? Why would I want to associate with people that take delight in making fun of people? Why would I allow myself to get sucked into that sinking vortex of mockery and find myself doing the same thing?
It’s gross.
I think the main reason for removing Facebook from my devices (again) is it’s battering my soul and damaging the good memories I have of people. Your politics and beliefs shouldn’t be my business, as long as you’re not out to reduce my standing as a citizen based on my sexual orientation. I want people in my life that I know would have my back in a tough situation.
The dialog on Facebook has shown me I can’t trust many of the folks I call “friends”. This makes me sad.
This is a glimpse of the corner of my desk in my home office. I relocated the stack of masks I had sitting in the corner of the desk because they were just adding to the clutter of the space and I found them distracting.
You’ll see a couple of cases and a pouch for eyeglasses. My regular glasses don’t work as well for writing code as they did three years ago so I have a couple pairs of “cheaters” to use when my eyes are tired. Staring at a computer screen for 10 hours a day can’t be good for the eyes.
Overall I like my workspace. One of the reasons we chose this condo is because it had a separate office, something not found in most of the condos in this building. I’ve been working from home for 10 years and I absolutely love the flexibility of doing so and the space I work in. I need to be vigilant about keeping things tidy or else I start to feel unfocused.
One of the biggest distractions I constantly deal with is the laptop provided by work. The company I work for is all in on Windows 10, even though it’s Linux in the background doing all the heavy lifting. While I used to get excited about Microsoft Windows, I find Windows 10 to be cumbersome and unpredictable. There are too many consumer features that are never used on this work laptop. We do have the option of bringing our own device to work, and I could use a Mac again if I wanted to, but my job is too busy to devote time to the care and feeding of using my personal laptop for work. So I make do.
Truman has a routine of sleeping at my feet for a couple of hours each afternoon. This is in direct contrast of yelling at the top of his lungs each morning during my morning sprint and team calls.
I will never understand that American motorist aversion to Roundabouts. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a Roundabout is an interchange with a circular median. Traffic entering the roundabout yields to the traffic already in the roundabout. Entry points into the roundabout are “channelized” to reduce the risk of someone turning the wrong way into the roundabout. The channelization also provides a safe location for pedestrians and cyclists to move through the intersection. There are no traffic lights.
Community knee-jerk reactions to an accident at a busy intersection is either on or a combination of two things: put up a traffic signal and/or lower the speed limit.
For the most part, motorists will naturally drive at the speed that “feels” appropriate for a roadway. When you design a highway for a 55 MPH design speed and then lower the speed limit to 30 MPH, motorists will still tend to drive 55 MPH. They will then slam on the brakes whenever they see something that resembles an officer of the law, which lends to erratic driving and creates the potential for an accident.
Anytime you stop traffic you are creating the potential for an accident. Traffic signals, especially ones located in relatively rural or semi-suburban areas, catch motorists off guard. And in today’s hurry, hurry, hurry environment, where everything and anything is expected now, drivers are running traffic lights more than ever. They see the light turn yellow and they gun it, trying to beat the light.
A roundabout is a traffic calming measure. Traffic keeps moving, but the design of the intersection moves that traffic at naturally slower, measured pace.
I suspect many American drivers are against the installation of roundabouts for two reasons: 1. they’re different and 2. they’re perceived as “un-American”. Roundabouts are much more prevalent in Europe and other parts of the world. State Departments of Transportation have only been building roundabouts for the past dozen or so years here in the United States. Well, since the beginning of the 21st century.
Some folks mix up Roundabouts with the higher speed Rotaries and Traffic Circle designs from the middle of the 20th century. These older designs are often larger than their modern replacement, have erratic practices for entry and exit, and manage traffic at a higher speed.
An added bonus of roundabouts is they’re more ecologically friendly. Traffic isn’t stopping and starting as much as at signalized intersections and no electricity is required to power the traffic signals. And on a side note, why haven’t we started converting our traffic signals to solar power?
The intersection in question is located in the northwestern corner of Indiana, not too far from the Illinois state line. A traffic light managed traffic at an intersection in the middle of corn fields, but there were several growing housing developments in the neighborhood. As a guy that went to school for Civil Engineering, I can tell you this particular location would probably be perfect for a roundabout.
State and other DOTs need to concentrate on education and other forms of public outreach. There is a decent chance that we could reduce accidents at intersections a bit if we continued to convert our intersections to this modern design.
Image courtesy of The Pulaski Democrat/NYS Historic Newspapers, May 1979.
I have always been interested in space, the stars, and the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in our galaxy. My first entry in the Elementary School Science Fair was in grade five. I made a presentation on UFOs. I’m seen here pictured next to a model I built out of paper plates and construction paper, based on a report I read about a sighting in Minnesota in 1976.
As an avid “Star Trek” fan, I have hopes that someday humanity will be be able to reach other solar systems at warp speed and that we’ll eventually make contact with our sentient species. I’ve always felt like the movie “Contact” probably came closest to what first contact will be like. I am hopeful that I will live long enough to see humans make contact with other intelligent species. We have a few more decades to accomplish this task.
So many science fiction novels and space operas are fueled by the concept of Earth being invaded by aliens, as if the only reason they’d cross many light years in incredibly advanced ships is to steal about F-16s and hover over our nuclear power plants. I’m often perplexed by these UFO sighting reports where witnesses say a craft came from a very far away destination to our planet just to blink its lights in the atmosphere. The visitors must want something other than to blink their lights at us, but I don’t believe they’d come all this way for purely hostile intentions.
I recently article that randomly popped up in my Apple News feed suggested that extraterrestrial visitors must be following some version of Star Trek’s Prime Directive, which boils down to this: “No human (or member of Starfleet) shall interfere with the natural progression and evolution of an alien species”.
This makes sense to me.
Can you imagine if aliens did arrive here? Many Americans can’t even handle folks coming into the country from Mexico, how in the world would they be able to handle the idea of beings coming from another world? For many it would instantly invalidate their religious beliefs. It would be an incredibly humbling experience, as it would turn out that humans aren’t the latest and greatest of “God’s” inventions after all. I’ve read more than one story that suggested there would be an incredible increase in suicide, because of the negation of these deeply rooted beliefs of humans being the most supreme creatures in the universe. If alien visitors can get to us but we can’t get to them then we’ve still got a lot of growing and evolving to do.
Perhaps aliens keeping their visits completely secret is their way of keeping our society intact.
Those that have reported contact with extraterrestrial visitors in relation to UFO sightings talk about being shown or taught things like devastating weather events, oceans taking over the land masses, and other ecological decay. Could it be the visitors are warning us of the dangers of man made climate change? Are they trying to nudge us in a better direction without causing the chaos of scaring the natives with the knowledge of their existence?
So many questions.
It is my hope that when we make contact with another intelligent species, that it’s done in an amicable, cooperative way. As mentioned in the Star Trek movie “First Contact”, learning we’re not alone in the Universe humanity hope to better itself because it learns we’re not alone.
This is not my mother and father. This photo is from an archived ad for the Great Lakes Mobile Home Company, and the photo shows the kitchen layout of a late 1950s Great Lakes mobile home.
We lived in a 1959 Great Lakes mobile home until I was nine years old. My dad built a two-story colonial-style house in the hayfield across the street and we moved there the day before I started in the fourth grade.
The mobile home was not big. I believe the official dimensions were 10’x50′. The stove in the photo is white, our stove and refrigerator were turquoise. When my sister was on the way, my Dad built an addition, adding a living room, small laundry room (with only room for the dryer, the washing machine was in the bathroom), and another additional bedroom. The addition was 8’x40′. The old living room became the dining room, because if you look at the kitchen in the photo above, there wasn’t really room for four people at a kitchen table for dinner, though I remember us doing just that. The table would be pulled out into the middle of the kitchen.
Apparently the clothes dryer was in the kitchen prior to Dad building the addition but I don’t really remember that. I have no idea where they would have put it.
When I was little the trailer seemed decently sized. I had the former master bedroom and my sister’s crib was in the little bedroom behind the living room. When she outgrew the crib my bed was replaced by bunk beds because the little bedroom didn’t even have enough room for a single bunk bed.
I remember riding out a couple of pretty intense winters in the mobile home before moving across the street. I remember the sound of rain on the metal roof and the windows between the new living room and the former living room. When the addition was built, the common wall with the mobile home was the original exterior wall. I didn’t find this odd.
The structure that defines your house does not define your home. It’s the people inside that make the home, and I remember a very happy home in our trailer.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
