Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

August 16, 2020 · 21:55

Read Your Receipts

It could be that I’m the slowest and stupidest person on this particular bandwagon, but…

…do you read any of the fine print, or even the not-so-fine print at the bottom of your grocery store receipts?

I usually don’t. Unless there’s something that I want to check (“Did I get that 3 for the price of 4 special on Lucky Charms?”) I usually don’t look at it at all other than possibly to record the total.

But today…

So it’s not-so-small print. “Recall Notice – You may have purchased the product listed below.”

Let’s get real. Their computer gets our customer loyalty card account number every week so that we can get that special when we buy five boxes of Cheerios and pile up those fuel points to use to get gas. Their computer knows EXACTLY what I bought. Their computer knows what I bought, what minute I bought it, and what product was out on the floor at that time. Their computer is giving me this warning because it’s 99.999% sure that I bought that recalled onion.

Three thoughts:

First, on one level it’s creepy as hell that they can do this while on another level (from someone who has designed databases and written programs in my sordid past) this is trivially easy so OF COURSE they can do this! When you buy Brand A detergent and you get a coupon for Brand B, do you think that’s an accident?

Secondly, given that ability, it’s pretty great that they’re giving us this warning rather than just having it buried out there in a two-second news segment at midnight on a channel I don’t watch or buried off in an online news article from a source I don’t pay any attention to. That’s very helpful and I guess I should be reading the receipt more often, right?

Finally – WHY THE HELL DIDN’T THEY TELL US SOONER? If we’re going to take it as a given that they have all of this data, I’ll guarantee that they have my phone number, my email address, my home address, my mailing address, and probably my shoe size, inseam, and current blood pressure readings. We’ve already eaten the possibly contaminated onions, probably ate them two or three weeks ago. If they found out about this sometime weeks ago, instead of waiting until now to have something stuck on the bottom of a three-foot long receipt, why couldn’t I have gotten a text or email or phone call weeks ago?

If I’m going to sacrifice any semblance of privacy and sell my digital soul to the big corporate grocer in the sky, can I at least ask to get some efficiency and timeliness in the one small benefit that I might get out of it?

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August 12, 2020 · 23:50

Remember Being Bored?

Remember when every day was a whole lot like every other day and there was a serious boredom factor involved and we wished for a little excitement?

Yeah, about that.

Let’s get back to a little more boredom, a little less stress, a little bit more routine, a little bit more predictability.

Is that too much to ask?

The critters are doing their part. Look out in the back yard – the lizards are lounging, the mockingbirds are mocking (it’s right there in their job description!), the finches are finching, the bunnies are bunnying…

How about we humans get with the program? Before the powers that be just reboot the planet by sending in that 900 gigaton iron ore meteor at .99C to solve the problem once and for all.

I know that the “Giant Meteor 2020!” bumper sticker is funny, but can I request “Boredom/Ennui 2020” as the ticket I would fully support?

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August 7, 2020 · 23:03

In Search Of Focus

If this isn’t symbolic of this entire year, I don’t know what is.

Practically, I was “playing” with the camera trying to get my astrophotography in better focus, then trying to take a picture of the lens settings using my cell phone when I got it right. That was the theory.

In reality, not only was I having ongoing problems with the astrophotographs being out of focus but the photos I was trying to take to troubleshoot it were also out of focus.

It was very meta.

And it occurred to me that it’s symbolic of this entire year, like a waking nightmare where we pray we’re dreaming because that would mean that we can wake up, but we know that it’s not a dream but we have to wake up from it anyway. Nothing makes sense, but we’re being bombarded with emotions and overwhelmed with a roller coaster ride between terror and joy, desperation and hope, wondering if every moment of love will be our last while knowing that every moment of hatred and anger will be followed by more, sooner or later.

Time to make the reality we’re desperate for, to do the work no matter how hard, to run the race no matter how long.

If we don’t, we’ll die.

Or worse.

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August 4, 2020 · 23:27

How Did We Get Here?

I’m not 100% sure where I was, but I thought I knew at one time. I might have been wrong. Or I might have forgotten. Maybe I left myself notes. Maybe not.

And I’m not 100% sure where I am now. Or which way I’m heading.

I’m not 100% sure where these words come from. I think that I’m 100% sure where this image comes from, but I’m not 100% sure what it means.

I described it twice today as “trying to run a marathon while hip-deep in molasses.” That’s fair, I think.

But while that might all be incredibly frustrating (it is), I will not stop running.

That’s one lesson of the marathon. You can get carried off in an ambulance, and your time may suck and not be what you wanted, but you will not quit.

No matter how much you just want to take a little rest, sit for a few minutes, and see if maybe that leads to a quit.

No.

When in doubt, keep moving.

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July 26, 2020 · 23:45

Unanchored

Sunday nights seem to be the worst.

The whole world’s going crazy and it’s getting harder to hold on to a sense of balance. So much going on at home, trying to just hold on to a sense of normalcy in our own bubble. So much to do at work, trying to carry my weight and help where I can for those who need it. So much to do at the hangar as we’re shut down but still trying to survive. So much to going on across our country as actual forces of evil are trying to divide and destroy us from within.

Am I doing enough? Or am I doing too much and will I recognize the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Or does that whole “you’re stronger than you know” thing still apply and I need to buck up, get my ass in gear, and do even more?

Overlying all is a growing anxiety and fear over the COVID-19 virus. We’re still healthy, but know folks who aren’t, and have seen just how bad it can be.

Where’s the center in all of this? Where’s the balance point? Or is there one, or is it constantly shifting and moving?

There’s a little bit of relief on the weekend as we can force ourselves to make time to relax, to watch a ballgame or movie. But even there I feel a constant dread, a guilt, a pressure that time is being wasted when I watch that game or show. Which I know is wrong, but which in turn just feeds into the cycle of angst.

Baseball is back, which is good – but I can’t help but feel that the other shoe is going to drop any day, with a whole COVID outbreak that could devastate a team, teams, or the league. Hockey and basketball return this weekend, and pro football is less than six weeks away. Who even knows if we’ll get college sports in the fall.

So much uncertainty, so much stress, so much impending doom. But tomorrow we’ll tackle it all again and do our best. Mainly because we really don’t have any choice. As the saying goes, “The only way out is through.”

But Sunday nights seem to be the worst.

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Filed under CoronaVirus, Deep Thoughts, Sports

July 19, 2020 · 23:41

No Context For You – July 19th

It’s Sunday night.

The weekend was…not sufficient. Disappointing.

Last week was…difficult. Frustrating.

The upcoming week will be…unknown. Anticipation.

The good news is that we all have tremendous potential to make wonderful things of tomorrow, this week, this remainder of this month, the remainder of this year, the remainder of our lives. If we have the strength.

The bad news is that we may be facing tremendous forces opposed to us, both intentionally and otherwise, and the race may never have an end or even a chance to catch our breath. Our strength will be sorely tested.

I was thinking this week of Grant Imahara. And Jim Henson. And Stan Rogers. And listening to “Hamilton” brought all of those thoughts together. “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?”

Indeed.

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May 4, 2020 · 22:57

Fifty Years Ago Today – Not Star Wars

Yes, yes, “May the Fourth…” Maybe next year.

Remembering fifty years ago today:

I was only fourteen, raised in a conservative, Midwest, middle class household. I knew that people were protesting the Vietnam War and a lot of people hated Nixon, but I wasn’t involved. I was too young, had too many other personal, angsty teenager things to deal with, like girls, trying to fit in while being a fish out of water in a new state that I (at the time) hated, missing my friends from where we had moved, and trying to figure out how to get out of being an altar boy seven days a week because we lived across the street from the church.

The perspective has changed more than a little bit for me. (Well, except for the girls thing – still a mysterious mine field.)

I don’t know if I think that the military or police or National Guard today would open fire on a crowd of unarmed student protesters.

But given what’s going on in Washington today, and some of the potential outcomes for November…

Hypothetically, if a certain orange monstrosity lost the election by an epic, historic landslide but still refused to leave the White House next January (like you can’t imagine THAT being possible!) and a few tens of millions of people took to the streets around the country demanding that he go (despite what I worry might be a raging COVID-19 pandemic by that point with over a million Americans dead) and it started to get ugly (think Chile, or Turkey, or the fall of the Iron Curtain)…

Would the military or police or National Guard open fire on that crowd?

I would hope not. They might. But I would bet they wouldn’t.

But would these shits stains open fire on innocent protesters?

michigan lockdown protests(Reuters / Seth Herald)

Even thinking about that brings me right back to the 1960’s (we were living in the Chicago suburbs during the 1968 Democratic National Convention) and 1970’s (“Four dead in Ohio’).

Let’s hope that at this time next year we’re having “Yoda-ritas” and watching Star Wars marathons with actual adults in the White House and Senate and House.

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Filed under CoronaVirus, Deep Thoughts, Moral Outrage, Politics

April 19, 2020 · 23:10

Boob Tube

It’s a good thing that television originally started out with an electron gun painting pixels across the face of a vacuum tube so that when it started to get filled predominantly with mind numbing stupidity it got referred to as the “boob tube.” Because I’m here to tell you, “boob OLED ultra 4K cinema HDR smart flat panel display” just does NOT roll off the tongue the same way! It’s even more ironic that the boob tube can’t show any actual boobs unless you’re watching cable. Except of course for that disgusting blob in the White House who reminds us daily of the original meaning of the term “boob” and not the meaning that I’m so fond of despite it’s extremely sexist overtones. I’ll stop now. You’re welcome. Wash your hands. Stay home.

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March 30, 2020 · 22:38

Meditation Might Be Worthless

Hear me out on this one…

I’ve never been much of a meditation sort of guy. Too much of a class clown. Not a big believer in the “woo-woo” side of life.

But I’ve mellowed with age. I’m long, LONG past the stage where I thought I knew everything and I’m now deep, DEEP into the stage where I’m not convinced I know anything. You know – mid-life crisis and all of that. (Anyone makes a crack about how I’m too old to be having a “mid”-life crisis gets shown the far side of the airlock door.)

(And yes, that is the class clown trying to come out and go all Hawkeye Pierce on the situation to distract from the actual crisis. I’m recognizing it – I just can’t stop it, so that’s progress. See?! There we go again…)

Anyway, where I work now we have Wednesday afternoon meditation sessions. Just ten minutes, but I’ll take the break. It’s actually quite relaxing and pleasant. I look forward to it. At last, I did until we went and had to shut down the office due to the COVID-19 crisis.

But here’s the thing.

On a day like today, because of this, and THAT, and then the day I had, and then… And god forbid you should actually read the news. And then we got word (which shouldn’t have been a surprise, but I still had hope) that the Ahmanson’s production of “1776” this summer is being cancelled. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to that.

And that in turn brought up the overwhelming likelihood that “Hamilton” will also be cancelled. It will be. It should be. The world is shit and millions are going to be dying.

And then one of the little escapes that I was truly enjoying (we’ve been binging “The Good Place”) hit the end of the 3rd season (which was an absolute gut punch) and I was desperate to move on to the 4th season to see how it’s resolved. But it’s not out there yet and probably won’t be until fucking AUGUST!!!

And I shouldn’t be starting every sentence with “and,” but I am.

I fully realize (especially writing this out) how privileged and highly ridiculous my particular whine is, given the magnitude of the crisis facing us all. I’ll own that. For better or for worse, this is where the camel’s back got broken for me today.

And as I’m teetering on the abyss, my brain spinning in circles like a rabid squirrel hopped up on meth, grasping at straws, it occurred to me. “Meditation.” Isn’t that what this is for? Isn’t that a much better solution than tearing off your clothes, covering yourself in raspberry preserves, and running screaming through the streets of Los Angeles at night?

Except…

Meditation is slow. It’s methodical. It’s pastoral.

It’s glacial.

I needed something RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!

So it occurs to me that when the chips are down, when you’re facing your particular existential crisis, unless it’s a slow, methodical, pastoral, glacial sort of crisis, meditation might be worthless. Sort of like having a really good, really accurate single-shot long rifle when you’re suddenly attacked by a thousand rabid squirrels armed with machine guns.

And I now realize that my outlet, my solution, my therapy, my way to release Hawkeye Pierce, is to write.

I think there are about five, maybe six people who actually read this site. I don’t know if this outlet for my Day ‘O Shit would be better or worse if that was five or six hundred thousand.

Maybe that will be tomorrow’s existential crisis.

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Filed under CoronaVirus, Deep Thoughts, Entertainment, Writing

March 11, 2020 · 23:13

Focus

It’s hard to do right now. Focusing. Prioritizing. Thinking straight.

What a day, huh? The NBA is shut down. Dozens, if not hundreds, of universities and colleges have shut down. The NCAA’s March Madness, if played at all, will be played in empty arenas. The Mango Mussolini stumbles his way through a teleprompter speech that wouldn’t get a C- from a fourth-grade composition class, makes at least three world-class errors or misstatements in it, looks like death warmed over, and instead of rallying the country it causes a drop of 1,000 points in the overnight futures market, which means that tomorrow’s opening is expected to be a blood bath in a market already over 20% off of it’s highs of just two weeks ago.

Oh, yeah. And people are starting to die. There are worst case scenarios that have over a million dead Americans, and people already arguing over whether or not they’re actually the worst case.

It’s hard to focus, to act, to think, to not be paralyzed.

A few years back, when I was becoming unemployed for the first time in my life and not sure what the hell was coming, one of my biggest fears was the potential for ennui, for depression, for falling off the planet and not knowing how to get back on. So I started keeping track of the simple things and forcing myself to hold myself accountable. I still might fall off the planet, but at least it wouldn’t be a surprise when it happened. And the process itself, the data, the lists, helped to steer me in the right direction and not lose my way.

Somewhere early in that process I started this website. It’s never been profound, or popular, or whatever else it might have been supposed to be, but it has been an anchor. In the almost seven years since I’ve started, I’m not sure there are ten days in which I’ve missed posting something. It might have just been a picture or a lame observation or something incredibly witty and clever that no one on the planet ever noticed or read – but it got posted.

At about 03:00 last night I woke up and realized that I hadn’t pushed the “Publish” button on yesterday’s article. Nor did I get up at 03:01 and go do that. And I missed posting about four days ago just because…I forgot.

That’s one symptom. There are plenty of others. None fatal. Not super critical. None involve the fate of the world. But they’re bothersome.

As the shit hits the fan, if I get sick, or if others around me get sick, there may be days I don’t post because of that. That’s okay – I’m not Superman. But while I and my family and friends are still not sick, it would be nice to still be on top of things and in control (yes, I’m well aware that it’s a “control issue”) and not seeing little cracks in the dam.

Yesterday’s post?

It was about the thunderheads roaming the area.

 

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