Archive for the ‘Cool’ Category

So some more Pennsic.

Ok, so I’m a geek. I dress up in this faux roman garb, sit around in a tent and write blog posts on my laptop.

I dug out my armor today, did some adjustments and wandered up to the field to get inspected. Pennsic inspections are supposed to be this big freaking deal but I’ve never had much trouble with it. They wanted a picture ID this year, and that forced me to walk back to camp (all of five min away.) Afterward I did pickups for a while, until it started raining hard. There has been a succession of fronts coming through, today was hot and dry until late afternoon.

Tomorrow is supposed to be wet again. Deb and I might go into town one last time, I’ve got a case of gluten free beer on order and we need to do laundry.

Those camp bunnies are doing fine, all but one are eating regularly and they are starting to crop grass. They plan to release them on the final day of the war, hopefully they will be old enough to make it on their own.

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Hoodwinked to Foggybottom 4.0

Our big plan was to get there early. Everyone we spoke to said we should get to the metro platforms when they open, they open at 4 AM!

So! Up at 2:30 AM. Dressed warmly and go out into the streets by 3:45. The local station was already packed and we waited out five trains before we got one that was empty enough to get on.  We emerged a short distance from the Capital to a scene out of Cloverfeild, darkness, lots of people, helicopters churning the air overhead, sirens and many police.

It was rather cold, around 19 degrees and windy. We lined up about a quarter mile from the “silver gate,’ and waited. The line got moving about an hour later, it was slow going and we ended up just under the gate when the line pretty much froze in place. People in our line ended up dancing the electric slide just to stay warm.  We kept asking ourselves, what the bloody hell were we doing, freezing our butts off this early in the morning?

The sun started to come up and the line got moving, we passed through security and parked ourselves behind a Jumbotron, one of many that lined the mall for the event.  There were squads of sharpshooters everywhere, helicopters and even a predator orbiting overhead.

It was a long wait but the ceremony began after a while. We could see quite a way up the mall and the ocean of people around 2 million was just astounding. The sound was like nothing I’ve ever heard. The throng was like a living thing, once cheering when  a familiar face flashed on the screens, next booing when someone like Newt Gingrich was introduced.

Finally, after all this buildup, the main event. First Joe Biden was sworn I, then Obama. The oath was flubbed ( I heard they redid it so the nutballs would stop fussing,) otherwise it went off and people went nuts! For many, this was an event like that of the moon landing or 911. I was joking with Deb that we just elected the Pope. I spoke to to some of the security people, it was the largest crowd any of them had ever seen. One fellow had worked five inaugurations and he said this was the largest in history

After the main event we started moving towards the Rayburn Building which was nearby however because of the crush of people, it took almost an hour to get there. We went into a side entrance, the main was reportedly socked and the one we lined up for the security screen. All the office buildings have x-rays and metal detectors, even the monuments.

They had lunch for us (and other guests) Congressman Bill Young’s office. The famous congressional bean soup was served and sandwiches (with very strong coffee- thank god!) We warmed up, Congressman Young invited us into his office and chatted with us for a while.  Then we were invited to get more food, it looked like they had more than they could give away, we ended up taking a bunch home with us. I got to thank the people who helped me out with my passport issues a few years ago. We also took some names, Bill Young’s staff has done an exceptional job with us and we need to write some thank you letters.

Back to the hotel where ewe all crashed for a while. We were all very tired but happy to have witnessed history this way, the cold notwithstanding. From my point of view, it made the event that much sweeter.

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Hoodwinked to Foggybottom 3.0

Monday was MLK day and we did Deb’s Monumental Death-March which is pretty much the way it sounds. The start is n the very unfashionable Southwest corner of the National Mall, anyone who’s been there knows what I’m talking about. DC is ever a study in contrast, huge stone buildings right up against seeding looking apartment complexes and homeless people.

We walked around the tidal basin to the Jefferson Memorial, I think it would have angered Jefferson to have seen it but it’s always been one of my favorites.

Then we trudged to the FDR memorial, a sprawling thing, really four memorials in one, I highly recommend it. The Park Service allowed the waterfalls to freeze creating wonderful ice sculptures which set of the somberness of the site.

We visited the WWI memorial, its hidden off in a stand of trees and hardly anyone visits it.

Then the Korean War Memorial and its squad of spooky bronze solders.

Lincoln was closed for the inauguration so we visited the Vietnam memorial which always moves me.

But we had an appointment! We volunteered to take part in Obama’s call for MLK day to be a day of service and luckily, Target was sponsoring just such a thing at Marshal Stadium.

We ran through an amusing gauntlet of Obama merchandise vendors, there was an unbelievable array of Obama stuff, posters, clothing, lip balm, even bottled water (souvenir Obama water?) I was kind of disturbed by some of this. Some people are treating the inauguration like its the second coming. More on that later.

Anyway, we got into a queue and marched into the stadium, it was like something out of a really bad dystopian movie, lots and lots of people everywhere, noise and loudspeaker wielding handlers. We were given a short explanation o what was going to happen, then let into a large tent that dominated the center field. Inside we found lines and tables where we “helped” make small care packages for our troops overseas. Mostly this seemed to be a PR thing, get as many people into a small areas as possible and make sure they see the Target logo as much as possible.

There were some VIPs in the tent with us. I spoke to some people that seemed to be “important” (or they certainly dressed importantly.) One of them was asking me a lot of questions, where we were from and that kind of thing.

Then we heard a commotion and saw an entourage come through the line we were in, there were Secret Service people, photographers, media and in the middle of the mass was, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

She came through, shaking hands and whatnot, I got some great video, I could hardly help it, she was about five feet from me. That was a little freaky, it’s not every day that one is in the presence of the third most powerful person in the world. (This pic was taken on her way out with my little Instamatic.)

After going around the lines a few times we went out and wrote some cards for servicemen, then back through the gauntlet and back to our room. We retired early because the next day was…..
Inauguration day!

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My roots? Could it be?

Last week I accompanied my father and sister to my Great Aunt Miriam’s funeral.

We arrived at Albuquerque NM  around dinnertime Wednesday night, the plan was to pick up my sister and go up to Delores CO some five hours away to be in time for the funeral  on Thursday morning. My sister  ended up missing her connection ( her flight was fifteen min late!) and we ended up not getting on the road until midnight. We made very good time and arrived at Delores around five AM, got a few hours of sleep, climbed into our formal clothes (I looked like a gangster with my dark suit and trench coat,)  The we made the short dive to the grave site for the service. A bunch of family were there, lots of people I haven’t seen in decades. It was a nice service, some of her poetry was read and several people read some little things about her.

The we repaired to her sister’s home for a while and ended up at one of my nieces houses up on “the ridge” with a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains. Dad’s brother kept remarking how many of us were there, I jokingly tried to come up with a collective noun for a group of family members (we came up with “Mob” but I like “Chaos” the best.

We tuned in early, the next morning we wanted to bum around a bit. The town that dad grew up in was about an hour away and  we thought that we could have breakfast there, how wrong we were. town seemed closed up around 9 AM on a Friday so we went on to the next town which was a bit of a resort community.

We had a very pleasant breakfast amid some of the most spectacular scenery in the US. Then we pressed on and did the big loop around the local mountain range, into Durango and headed south to a small town in NM where one of my great uncles has a family business.  They are involved in a local wind-farm construction project and we went to visit the site. It’s very impressive, the towers are monstrous affairs with one hundred and seventysix foot  blades.

We hung around there until afternoon, then went back to Albuquerque NM  to visit an old friend and his family. They have a cool chunk of land outside the city that’s becoming more and more encroached by development there.  We didn’t get to see too much . It was dark by the time we arrived.  We went to a local artsy place called Green Stream or something like that. It as very good as was the conversation.

Then we repaired to our hotel room near the airport and grabbed early flights to home. Leaving the jagged landscape and high desert of my ancestors to the flat swampy land where I grew up and where my family lives.

I don’t known when I’ll have a chance to go back, I hope it’s soon!

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I’m the SETI user of the day!

Down in the lower left hand corner.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

I’ve been doing the SETI project almost since it started. Right now have 9.7 million credits into the project making me #371 out of 1.5 million users. My workplace

Let me say that again; I’m #371 out of one and a half MILLION users.

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Coffee and Crazyness!

I did my mocha and writing ride again last night, into Downtown Clearwater.

I happened upon a protester at the corner of Cleveland and Ft. Harrison. He and some friends were doing some kind of anti-government 9/11 thing. I had a hard time reading their signage.  It was all hand written by a sharpie and really difficult to read in the dark. It said “Most people still think Saddam did 911.”

He seemed earnest in his beliefs although it was difficult for me to tell exactly what he believed in.   He was well aware of Scientology but he had some strange attitudes which lead me to suspect he was a Scientologist or very sympathetic to them. As a matter of fact he mentioned a connection with the CCHR which he characterized as an organization that was independent of the church. He said that lots of people in the CCHR are not into Scientology (that’s news to me!)

At the same time he didn’t seem too sympathetic to Scientology itself. It was a strange mixture.  He was into satanic stuff or so he said.  He seemed to think that would shock me and he mentioned two or three other things that he was dead wrong about. Like who actually authored the book “A piece of Blue Sky.”  He mentioned the Jack Parsons Hubbard ODO connection like this was supposed to be news to me.
I should have known better because his sign when I got close enough to read it extolled the virtues of http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/main.htm, a pro conspiracy smorgasbord  that’s been making the rounds for the past few years., Zeitgeist makes convincing noises but completely misinterprets history and short-strokes all over the place.

He was very vehement in his dislike to “psyches” as he put it. All pharma is evil, his Mom was on Prozac, and she got off of it and committed suicide, see! That proves Prozac made her commit suicide!

(Um yah, sure; I’m sorry about your mum dude!)

He tried to get me to talk about Scientology, “I’m your friend! You can tell me about what you know” he said. I informed him that I don’t think of him as a friend since I had just met him and knew nothing whatsoever about him. “Well I think of you as MY friend,” he said.

Sure buddy! The only people who talk that way are trying to pull one over on me.

I’ve noticed that a lot lately in Clearwater. I’ve bumped into some very chatty people who seem to dislike Scientology, want to pump me for information. They  use the term “psych” a lot. (Little protip Peter; Most people don’t use the word “psych” outside of Scientology and certainly not as a derogatory term.) I’ll also try to forget that Downtown Clearwter has about as many cameras on the public street as Fort Knox and from some of the stuff Scientology has placed on YouTube, they are probubly picking up and *recording* conversations.

Also; I’ve noticed that most people who utter the word psych don’t seem to understand the difference between Psychology and Psychiatry. That’s kind of a giveaway;I mentioned to this fellow that Psychology and Psychiatry are about as different as hairstyling and surgery, he gave me a funny look.

I always find it strange when people criticize stuff they know nothing about.  Would it not make sense to actually read up on the subject and find the real flaws instead of just making shit up? Of course you stand the risk of understanding what the mental health industry is really for, it’s not some nutty bunch of guys in thick German accents trying to tell you that “man is just an animal!”

**

“Baez,” the portly Mexican-looking Flag security guy ran out to make sure I wasn’t hassling all the Sea Org people walking around. (Hi Baez!) Someone probably ran into his office to tell him the evil SP was spreading evil or whatever evil SPs do. ( I got to work on my German accent!)

I think he’s one of the guys who was a petitioner on their goofy injunction. If so he’s publicly stated that I’m a crazy person who might very well cause harm to Scientology members (like murder them!)

Because of my craziness!

I might do something drastic!

Instead I went over to Starbucks, got a mocha and wrote for a while. (Sorry Baez! I really hope your barracks inspection went well this week! I remember those when I was a kid in basic! Barracks inspections  were a bitch! (Giving them and getting them!)  I think it’s nutty to be doing that kind of shit as a forty+ year old man, but I am the crazy one!)

There is a protest scheduled for this Saturday, 10:30 at Clearwater Coachman Park. Bring a mask and water. They say that they will march until their water supplies run out which in this heat won’t take too long!

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Flying Saucer Captured!

…sort of!

Last night I was talking to one of my neighbors. He told me (among other things ) that he’s seen coyotes running around the neighborhood, coyotes have actually been spotted in the area by police and other people (like my neighbor) who’s up and around early in the morning. I tend to believe this, one of my dogs goes nuts around 3 AM, our bloodhound (the one we thought was a mutt- more on that later) smells something that drives her bananas when I take her for walks out on the pavement. It would be cool to get a pic of one.

Then my neighbor told me about the UFO he saw last spring (since I was receptive of the coyotes.) It was a huge red flickering ball that descended slowly over our house. He ran inside to get a camera but when he came out it was gone.

I believed that one too, because the UFO was in my garage.

I found this right about the same time he saw his UFO, it’s a sky lantern. I know that’s not as sexy as an alien spacecraft but it’s much more likely and fits his description. He said it flickered as it came down, very likely the candle or whatever was powering the thing was almost burned out. I found it early one morning this spring, put it away and forgot about it.

How cool is that?

( I still want to get a pic of a coyote, Deb? Can I get that low-light webcam now?)

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Dark Nights, Bright Days…

Well on Friday, Deb and I went to friend’s house to take in the  Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies.

Beijing Olympics?! I remember when we called the city Peking and no round-eye set foot there. On Friday we were treated to a “spectacular-spectacular” the likes of which is seldom seen outside of Pyongyang.

Networks make note! I would watch  and buy your sponsors products if you could get broadcast rights from the North Koreans.

What we saw was really impressive-over the top entertainment full of good old Chinese values. There were thousands  – tens of thousands of performers including cute little girls on peter-pan rigs. People marching around the outside of a giant hollow sphere that lifted slowly out of the arena floor (I started shouting “AAAH! It’s a MISSILE!”) They had huge floor mounted LCD screens , fireworks that created local fog alerts (they grounded all vehicular traffic in Beijing to keep the smog down, then burned enough magnesium and gunpowder to smoke up the whole place. )

(A few days later the news services were full of a story about how some of the fireworks were faked.)

We made lots of catty comments throughout while being impressed with the immense effort and choreography. It really was spectacular; I can’t wait for closing ceremonies.

The parade of nations became the “Parade of Costume” along with our parade of catty comments. We liked the folk costumes of some countries.  Russia had a strange combination of blazers over their traditional embroidered tunics. Each by themselves would have been OK, the combination looked silly.

Hungry had the worst one, red flowers over stark white dresses for the women, which made them look like they had been machine-gunned.

The US athletes looked dorky in their Disneyish – “Revenge of the Boatnicks” get-up.

I think our illustrious President must have picked those uniforms out.

Bermuda was pretty bad too, red shorts, black socks and tennis shoes. What were they thinking! You don’t HAVE to dress like a tourist!

Saturday was a complete wash, Deb was out of the house so I set about fixing our washing machine, it has a debris build-up problem that a helpful service technician would have charged us $200 bucks for.  I did it and got my hands all cut up. The insides of our washing machine is like a wet-dirty car engine with razor blades in random areas.

Deb and I went to see the new Batman flick . Short version; It’s an excellent psychological thriller masquerading as an action film. I loved the interplay between the various characters, then they broke for relatively boring action bits, then more interplay. The late Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was marvelous. I’ve always thought of the Joker as the perfect villain, insane; no particular goals or motive, working towards anarchy and chaos but uncaring of the consequences should he achieve it. “Ledger stated that his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.”

I think he got it perfectly. Overall the film was a bit hard to follow, it was edited into the current – edgy  style, whatever they call it. The editing was harsh and unforgiving. Many- many tracking shots to the point of absurdity.  I really liked that the film was on location most of the time, Gotham City was not some weird backlot fantasy of  giant statues (that always annoyed me.) The city looked like a freaking city for once, nice touch.

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One day

I just had someone do a fashion shoot right outside my window… how cool is that?

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io9

“Strung out on Science Fiction!”

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