So this weekend’s ride across the prairie took us on rural “Chicago Road” from southeast of Dixon, Illinois all the way back to the western suburbs of the Windy City. At times the road was clear, at other times we were driving along hard packed snow with hints of brown sand to keep things from getting too slippery.
Even though we’ve done it a lot during the pandemic, I do enjoy these rides across the farmland and Illinois prairie. Living in the big city is exciting but as a guy that grew up in a pretty rural area of Upstate New York, I can sometimes be overwhelmed by the amount of “input” I get from urban life.
We drove through several small towns during our journey, and two of them stood out to me. It was too dark to take photos (I need to upgrade my iPhone to something with “night vision” or whatever it’s called), but Lee Center, Illinois looked like it was at one time a charming small town. It’s reminiscent of the hamlet near the house my dad built. Like that hamlet, Lee Center looks a little forgotten. This makes me sad.
We also passed through Paw Paw. There was a little more activity: a small supermarket, a convenience store, and a couple of store fronts. There was a few more signs of life but it too felt like it was a little forgotten. Maybe folks there want it that way. I don’t know.
I do know I find the farm pictured above quite charming. The simplicity of the landscape gives me peace.
Before moving to Chicago nearly four years ago, we lived in Upstate New York near Utica. Located somewhat close to the geographic center of New York State, the township was the site of many high voltage distribution lines coming together at a very large switching yard a few of miles from the house. Marching northward from the switching yard, toward the Canadian border where power flowed from Hydro Quebec, was one of the highest voltage lines in the nation, a single 765kV circuit. On more than one occasion I took a couple of fluorescent light bulbs along for the ride and stood underneath the buzzing lines. The light bulbs lit up in my hand. Turns out I wrote about one of my field trips, back in 2012.
Back in 1980, Ralph Waite (from “The Waltons”) starred in a movie called “Ohms”. The drama addressed concerns a farmer has about the power lines being built across his farmland. I watched the movie with great interest; it was one of the first times my mom and dad let me stay up until 11:00 PM. My dad made the final decision, since he knew I was very interested in these things and was fascinated with the movie. He watched it with me. There’s a brief clip from the movie on YouTube.
During one of our rides over the summer, I noticed a high voltage power line passing pretty close to a residential sub-division in Channahon, Illinois. As we drove along US 6 I said to my husband, “those power lines are really close to those houses. I’m surprised they built the houses *that* close”.
He mentioned it must have been an optical illusion since we were over a half mile away from where I spotted the power lines, so we drove around the subdivision and surrounding area and concluded that no, they were really close.
While researching other power lines I spotted during today’s ride, I found this photo on the Internet. These were the power lines I was referring to back during our ride over the summer.
The housing development seems rather new so I wandered around on Google a bit to see if there was any discussion about the houses being so close to these power lines, but I haven’t been able to find anything. Now, I have no investment in any of this other than a dorky interest in the subject, but I’m still quite surprised at how close the residences are to this (seemingly) 765kV power line. Side note: I haven’t confirmed the voltage of these lines, they could be 365kV or 500kV, but the size of the towers seem to be the higher 765kV, but I don’t know this for sure.
I don’t know if there have ever been any conclusive studies on the health effects of prolonged exposure to these high powered transmission lines. I know I’m fascinated by them and have been around them on and off for years, but I have little interest in living close to them. Would I farm under them? Probably. Would I swim in a pool near them? Probably not.
The reason I went down this rabbit hole is because I realized that I’ve been in all 50 states and while I certainly haven’t seen every single power transmission circuit in the country, I don’t think that I’ve seen towers with such big “cat ears” like we have here in Illinois.
Today I took a photo of a glimpse of a sunset today, with a 345kV circuit crossing the Illinois prairie along the way.
Twitter suspended Donald Trump’s account. Permanently. He’s done on Twitter.
Facebook did the same thing yesterday.
Both Apple and Google have warned the owner of the Parler app they need to clean up their platform, pronto, else they’re kicked out of Apple and Google devices.
I will always be thankful for coming of age in the 80s. This track was popular when I was a baby DJ. From 1989, here’s Will To Power with “Fading Away”.
Everyone tries to get in shape at this time of the year. I do the same thing, though this week has been a little tricky with the need for exercise combatting the need to sleep and need to stress eat. Stress eating is fun! Are McRibs still around?
I’ve been avoiding the building elevator and walking the stairs instead. I don’t know if this helps a great deal but it makes me feel like I’m going to pass out after I walk up to our condo. I often hear about “runner’s highs” and “hitting the wall” but I just skip over that part and tinker on unconsciousness instead.
I don’t know if I’m burning many more calories this way but I feel like my already strong legs could probably push a Volkswagen or Karmann Ghia across a parking lot.
So last night, after watching hours of news coverage of the insurrection going on at the Capitol Building and then watching the Senate and House proceedings on certifying the vote, I wrote a quick blog entry that was vague. I talked about failure, and shock, and success.
I am very angry.
My mind has been blown since Trump took office four years ago. My mind was actually blown long before he won the Republican Primary. Anyone with any sense or moral foundation knew that a Trump Presidential Administration was going to be an absolute disaster. Yesterday was just the icing on the a feces laden cake we’ve been forced to deal with since this idiot took office.
But thing that blows me away is how rabid his supporters have become. Members residing on my branch of the family tree are so whacked out in love with the guy, and this leaves me stupefied. Four years later, after seeing praise and piety and whatever other word that means “what the fuck” that begins with a “p” heaped onto this guy from the strongest “Christians” on the family tree has me baffled. I thought I was related to stable people. There are too many lunatics in my bloody relations.
However, I like to think that those few around me are not nearly as nuts as the complete and utter idiots that stormed the Capitol Building yesterday. There’s a video of some chick named Elizabeth talking about a revolution but crying because she got some mace in the eyes. I’m surprised the Capitol Police found the time to mace this woman. They didn’t seem very interested in protecting the place; there’s too many video clips and photos of police officers taking selfies with these criminals or opening gates to let them have access to the building. The entire Capitol Police Force needs to be stripped from the top all the way to the bottom. The chief resigned. It’s a start.
Folks are frustrated. I get that. But in no way was Donald Trump ever the answer to this problem. The man has been a television punch line for decades. The man has bankrupted casinos. And not only did millions of Americans find him worthy of the Oval Office in 2016, 70 million American still think he’s doing well enough to get another chance to burn the entire country down to the ground over the next four years.
What the fuck is wrong with you people? Are your lives so miserable that you want everyone else to suffer to make you feel better over your stupefied, miserable, unsuccessful lives?
I’ve been too quiet for too long about politics, especially here on my blog. Yes, I love talking about all aspects of life here, but for life to be pleasant we have to have a strong foundation. Am I thrilled about Joe Biden as President? Meh, I think he’ll do fine. I find Kamala a refreshing breath of Gen-X in a decidedly Baby Boomer game. The thing I’m most excited about is Georgia swinging blue in the Senate yesterday. This is going to be interesting. And ironically, we have Trump’s asshattery to thank for that. But more importantly, I feel like the country may have turned a corner. I think yesterday’s abomination and blight on our history may have pushed enough people in the right direction to get things swung back over towards something that resembles sanity.
I’ll be following politics closely. I want to know what’s going on. And I want to do everything I can as Joe Citizen to help push the country finally into the 21st century. We’re already 21 years into the 21st century and we ain’t got squat to show for it.
And it’s 5:20 AM and I’m sitting in the living room, unable to sleep for the past 45 minutes or so. After watching the events of yesterday (wow, that was quite a week!), I’m still shaking my head wondering what the hell has happened to this country. I openly wept in bed the day after Election Day in 2016 because I knew Trump’s election as president was one of the most dangerous, reckless, and stupid acts the citizens of this country had ever committed. There is no good in that man. And yet, a little less than half of the population thought he did just fine with hundreds of Americans dead from a preventable pandemic, and the crushing of any sense of law and order or decorum or anything remotely resembling intelligence in Washington, D.C.
I have no idea if that last sentence made sense as I can barely see what I’m typing in the dark, but you get my drift.
My dreams have been populated with jumbled scenes mixed with historical context and augmented by memories from my childhood. My brain is yelling at me to “turn it off” but I can’t. At 52 years old I guess I still care too much about my fellow man. Just as I used to have nightmares about nuclear annihilation when I was a teenager in the 80s, my conscience is populated with the concern of what this nation has become.
For a long time I have refrained from going on about politics and talked about anything else. Silence is not the answer. Too many people are being silent on topics and subjects that need to be discussed. The problem is the last four years have been so utterly draining for anyone with any sense of decency for their fellow citizens, or anyone with an IQ higher than the speed limit, that I’ve completely run out of steam for debate.
Watching the attack on the Capitol Building yesterday ignited a fire in me again. As I watched the Senate proceedings after control of the building was regained, my eyes misted up as I saw American Democracy in action.
Our Democracy is not a reality game show, to be won by the strongest “team” nor is it scored like a football or basketball game. I know the cable news channels like to announce scores like Joe Biden just made a lay up or Trump just made fumbled the ball, but despite the hysterics of pundits and commentators and “Magic board” operators, poll results are just the results of math equations that have already been completed.
So what does this have to do with sleep? Say what you will about 2020, but at least I was able to get sleep then. In 2021 sleep seems to be a luxury that I currently can not afford. Even as lethargic as I feel right now from a lack of sleep, I still care about this success of this country, this “Greatest Experiment”.
Hopefully I’ll be awake long enough to see the latest outcome.
Remember when theme songs let you know when your favorite show was on? Here’s a fun video to the radio length version of “Making Our Dreams Come True” by Cyndi Grecco. “Laverne & Shirley” was always a favorite of mine (though I didn’t like it when the syndicated version called it “Laverne & Shirley & Company”.
I’m a dork. I freely admit this. I great joy in geeky, dorky things. We’ve talked about this before.
My Mac and iPhone and iPad are decidedly undorky. While they do what they’re suppose to do, they don’t really excite me in a techy, geeky sort of way. I see these hackers and crackers on television shows with awesome displays and nifty interfaces that beep and boop and I have none of that. I get in the realm of that sort of experience when I use Linux (don’t get me started on my Windows 10 experience at work).
Recently I discovered a cross-platform application called eDEX-UI. It’s a fun little tech experience with beeps and boops and characters flying around. It’s really just a super fancy terminal window (with multiple tabs) but I feel such dork joy when I’m using it. Does it lend credence to my productivity? Yes, it does, because it puts me in a focused type of system administration mindset. And that’s what I need in these days of boring interfaces to technology.
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.
