Category Archives: LA Angels

September 28, 2014 · 22:07

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Sunday, September 28th

‘Cause the baseball postseason is here and my beloved Angels have the best record in baseball, that’s why.

  • In addition to the moon in the evening sky, there are a couple of bright planets. Look for them all! Last night (Saturday, 09/27) the Moon was very close to a very bright Saturn. Tonight, the Moon was getting close to a somewhat bright but very reddish Mars. The Moon will keep heading up higher into the sky each night and getting brighter, but if you’ve got binoculars, it’s a great time to be looking. Before it starts getting cold. Like GRRM said…
  • The Long-Suffering Wife cut her finger yesterday in the kitchen. I put a bandage on it, and the one immediately at hand in the kitchen cupboard was an old SpongeBob SquarePants bandage. Not a big issue, until much later, when the lights got turned off in the bedroom and she realized that it glowed in the dark. Her reaction was quite interesting, to say the least.
  • Is it unreasonable to think that our air traffic system should be robust enough so that a single disgruntled employee can cause massive disruptions of thousands of flights, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded, a mess than continues to be a mess three days later and will continue to be a mess for days more? Did no one anywhere in the FAA or Transportation Department think that there should be some sort of backup plan if a single TRACON had to go offline?
  • Jessie went out on Wednesday morning and was stunned to find her prized squirrel carcass gone from the patio sidewalk. For two days, every time she went out in back she went straight to that spot and started sniffing around and looking for it. Then she would look at me with sad, accusing, old dog eyes. I swear, I didn’t touch it, I left it there. I’m figuring there’s a coyote or raccoon or owl or hawk or crow that found an easy, more or less freshly dead meal and took off with it.
  • Pumpkin spice Oreos? Really? I will make a bold statement here — I have never had “pumpkin spice” anything. Not lattes, not beer, not cookies, not cheesecake, not ice cream, not pickles — nothing! As such, I feel fully qualified to feel like I’m the last guy who can tell humanity about the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” or Charlton Heston at the end of “Soylent Green.” “It’s pumpkin spice, humans! Stop eating it! It’s sent by aliens to take over your brains! Don’t eat the pumpkin spice!”
  • At least the glow in the dark SpongeBob SquarePants bandage is on her “driving” finger. At least, that’s what we call it here in Los Angeles.
  • It’s hockey preseason and I’m learning that I need to get my gimpy shoulder into mid-season form quickly. My usual reaction to a Kings goal is to instinctively and immediately throw my arms in the air. If my arm hurts when I do that, we’ve got a problem. (The Vuvuzela of Victory only sings its sweet, sweet song during the playoffs. We have to save the juju for when it’s really needed.)
  • How much does a wagon cost these days? You know — small, red, kid sized, used for hauling toys, dirt, and little sisters. I’m asking for a canine friend.
  • The reports I’ve seen said that the contract employee who sabotaged the FAA air traffic control center in Chicago was upset because they had just been informed they were being transferred to Hawaii. Further developments and information are most certainly coming, but for the moment, let’s examine that allegation. Now, mind you, I absolutely love the city of Chicago. I spent a couple of years there as a kid (junior high school years) in the suburbs, still love going back to visit. I’ve never had a bad time there. But is it so good that when “threatened” with a transfer to freakin’ HAWAII I would go berserk? Are we talking about a different Hawaii than the one I see on TV with the beaches, the jungles, the weather, the surfing, blah, blah, blah?
  • Or the squirrel RE-ANIMATED and its rotting, evil, zombie squirrel body is stalking the trees, waiting for its chance to catch Jessie unawares so that it can WREAK ITS VENGEANCE!!
  • That comma is really important in the “It’s pumpkin spice, humans!” line.
  • Los Angeles about ten days ago, lunch time, near Beverly Hills. South of Sunset, by the Pacific Design Center, between San Vicente and La Cienega. One of the million little, itty-bitty strip malls that cover LA like scabs. As usual for the breed, this one might have had 12 to 15 parking spaces, all full. I’m sitting there eating outside when a brand new, white, shiny, Maserati Quattorporte pulls into the lot. He’s in luck! There’s a full size SUV, an Urban Assault Vehicle, just pulling out of a space. The SUV departs and the person driving (the windows were blacked out, couldn’t see them) whips it around and tries to pull into the just-vacated parking spot. “Tries” is the key word here. They back up and try again, unsuccessfully. And again. And again. All of this despite the fact that a vehicle twice as big just pulled out of that spot. Just about the time I’m ready to start laughing and go offer to park it for them, they give up. They ROAR out of the parking lot, tires screaming — because they have a Maserati Quattroporte and they have to show the world how insanely cool they are. As they leave, another SUV, just as large as the previous one, pulls in and swings into that parking spot in one try. The conclusion is obvious — despite that $140K price tag, the Maserati Quattroporte has the turning radius of a battleship and is a pig to handle in tight spaces! Well, that or someone was seriously overcompensating for something, and it wasn’t the fact that they can’t drive for beans.

Remember, “Some days you win, some days you lose. Some days it rains.” That’s deep. Really. Not even being snarky. From Bull Durham, one of the finest baseball movies ever made. (It happens to be about baseball. A bit. And other things.) ((I’ll shut up now.))

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Filed under Astronomy, Dogs, Freakin' Idiots!, Health, Juicy Chunks, LA Angels, Los Angeles, Ronnie, Sports

September 6, 2014 · 20:54

You Know What We Haven’t Seen In Forever?

All of those who correctly answered “FIREWORKS!” can take an extra fifteen minutes for lunch tomorrow. Have some fireworks from Dodger Stadium this time.

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Why yes, we were sitting down along the first base side. How did you know?

For those of you keeping score on my sports obsessions affiliations, my beloved Angels have a six-game lead with twenty-one games to play, which I believe makes our “magic number” to win the division just sixteen. (Right? Game left minus games ahead, plus one? 21 – 6 = 15 +1 = 16.)

My beloved Chiefs open the NFL season tomorrow after a truly unbelievable year last year, going 11-5 after being 2-16 the previous year — and then collapsing in the worst “epic fail” loss in playoff history. This year? I’ll be thrilled if we’re 10-6 or 11-5 and in the playoffs again, but I think we may struggle to get to 8-8. Last year might have been an anomaly, but I will be thrilled to be proven wrong!

 

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Filed under Fireworks, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, Photography

September 5, 2014 · 20:49

Sounds

I was just out in the back yard, standing there in the dark while the dog patrolled and marked her territory. It’s a nice night here, moon through the trees, still warm, starting to get a bit muggy — but what really struck me were the sounds.

From inside the house I could hear the Angels-Twins baseball game on the television. As I mentioned the other day, even if you’re not watching or paying attention to the game, even if you don’t care about the outcome, if you’ve been raised with baseball in your life there’s a rhythm, a form, a patois to a baseball game broadcast that’s all its own. That’s a sound that can take me straight back to childhood, back when there was only one game on television all week, the NBC Saturday Game Of The Week, and it was never my team. (At that point it was the Kansas City Athletics.) Every game was listened to on the radio, with Monte Moore calling the action. I’m sure that for other folks there’s a similar attachment to the sounds of soccer or basketball, but for me it’s baseball.

From down the block I can hear the high school football game, the first home game of the year. It’s a private high school, not the public school our kids went to, but it’s always great to hear the crowd, the band, the totally unintelligible blaring from the PA system. It would have been great to be back in Kansas City for this weekend’s season kickoff festivities for the Chiefs, but lacking that, the sound of night high school football games tells me at a cellular level that football season is here.

As Jessie finished her business, over the hill by the county line I could hear a siren start up. I remember as a kid being surprised to find that (as a general rule) different siren sounds indicated different emergency vehicles. Fire trucks don’t sound like ambulances which don’t sound like police cars. What I was hearing tonight was a police car, which made sense given that it came from that direction while the fire station was over that way and the hospital over that way. A minute later, off toward the Valley, the sound of an incoming helicopter indicated that something was indeed up over toward the freeway.

When we were in Vermont and upstate New York in June, one of the things that struck me after a couple of days was the total lack of sirens and helicopters. Between police, fire, and ambulance sirens and police, private, and traffic helicopters flitting about, you never go more than a couple of hours without hearing sirens and choppers in Los Angeles. It’s so routine you don’t even think about it until you start hearing a LOT of them. (If they’re fire engines, you live near the hills covered in dry brush, and you suddenly catch a whiff of smoke on the breeze, that’s a whole different alert level.) But in ten days in New England, I didn’t hear a single siren, nor did I see or hear a single helicopter. As with the dogs that did not bark in the night, it stood out once it was noticed.

Finally, off in the distance, going through the Santa Suzanna Pass, a train whistle could be heard. There’s a reason that sound is so synonymous with loneliness and longing, the call of the road, the desire to be off seeking adventures or a new life, all debts paid one way or the other, a clean slate wherever we end up. It made me wonder what sound evoked those feelings before the train was invented. There must have been one, the feelings aren’t new. I’m thinking it might have been the sound of honking geese heading over the horizon.

Where do those geese go, and when can I follow?

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Filed under Dogs, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, Los Angeles, Paul

May 9, 2014 · 23:30

The Best Distraction In History

We have invented more than a few things over time to distract us, to give us something to do while procrastinating, to take us away from what we really should be doing.

First, there was the book. I doubt anyone’s family ever started to death because the hunter/gatherer/farmer/provider in the family was too wrapped up in “The Illiad” or “Gilgamesh.” These days we’ve gotten better at procrastination, so there are many sudden sick days called in when the latest “Wheel of Time” or “Game of Thrones” book comes out.

Then came radio. How could kids be expected to study and do homework when “Terry and the Pirates” or “Inner Sanctum” was coming right into their living rooms?

Television became the king pretty quickly by the 1950’s and 1960’s. Housewives left carpets unvacuumed and laundry unwashed (okay, stereotypical, but in the 50’s and early 60’s those stereotypes were there for a reason) due to the afternoon soap operas. No one in his right mind tried to get kids to do anything on Saturday morning when cartoons were on.

Sports got onto television and men led the charge as we all found ways to change our schedules to accommodate the World Series, football playoffs, Stanley Cup finals, and March Madness. (It long ago stopped being just men, but that’s another stereotype that lingers.)

Computer games have been ruling the roost lately. How many billions of hours have the human race collectively squandered on Angry Birds, Farmville, Bejeweled, Candy Crush, Pac-Man, and on and on and on and on?

We all have our own tastes for distractions, the thing that can make us decide to throw in the towel on even trying to meet a deadline or goal. I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for books, and there are a few television shows I’ll make time for. And of course, my beloved Kings, Chiefs, and Angels, especially if (when!) they’re in the playoffs.

But there’s no doubt a new challenger for my time.

The latest Dragon spacecraft from SpaceX arrived at the International Space Station last week. Soon afterward, an equipment pallet was remotely taken from the Dragon and installed on the nadir (“bottom”, or Earth-facing) side of the station. It simply has several HD television cameras, controlled from the ground. And they’re always on. And you can watch them, LIVE, for free, from your computer or tablet or smart phone or whatever.

There are several feeds that I’ve found. This one is fantastic, with a split screen showing both the live feed video from Ustream and the ISS live tracking map from the European Space Agency. In one fell swoop, you can see what the astronauts on the ISS are seeing, and you can tell where they’re at and what you’re looking at. (Bookmark it NOW!)

Capture 1Capture from NASA & ESA

At this moment, we’re just coming up on sunrise. Sixty seconds ago the live video was black (it was night, ISS was over the Atlantic, no cities, no lights). Then we came into the sunrise on orbit (spectacular!) and the ISS got lit up brilliantly, while the ground below it is still in darkness. (If you had been in northwest Africa, inside that yellow circle surrounding the ISS on the map, it would have been an outstanding time to go outside and see it.)

The straight video feed only, live from space, can be found here. Put it on full screen, put on some tunes, and kiss the next couple of hours goodbye!

Capture 2Capture from NASA & ESA

Five minutes later, and the Earth below is coming into daylight. It’s dawn over the Mediterranean.

Capture 3Capture from NASA & ESA

Two minutes later, there’s the French Riviera and Northern Italy disappearing behind us as we head toward Turkey.

You can see what’s happening here. The system switches between cameras facing “forward,” “backward,” and “straight down.” There are brief periods when the live feed goes gray as ISS goes out of range of the TDRS satellites and ground stations, but it will be back in a couple of minutes.

Capture 4Capture from NASA & ESA

There’s Italy, clear as a bell. It looks like a lovely day there. It looks like an even more lovely day 260 miles up.

I may never get anything done again. If these kinds of views ever get boring or routine or droll, please feel free to check me for a pulse.

Capture 5Capture from NASA & ESA

Big storms over the Black Sea. (Gotta go to bed. Gotta go to bed. Gotta go to bed…)

Orbital mechanics

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Filed under KC Chiefs, LA Angels, LA Kings, Photography, Space

April 30, 2014 · 23:25

It’s A Good Night…

…to be a fan of the LA Kings hockey team and the LA Angels baseball team (as my family is).

I had a big, important, ranty topic to talk about today, but I was up and on the freeway at Zero Dark Thirty to get to my writing group (things are going well, another thing I’m feeling good about), then spent a good chunk of the day installing a new piece of computer hardware (a Fujitsu SnapScan ix500 high-speed scanner), using it to get a big project done for the CAF first quarter closing, then went nuts on the hockey game.

As a result, I’m exhausted and would strongly recommend against thinking great thoughts, tackling complex subjects, or operating any machinery more complex than a pencil or a pen.

So as far as the somewhat trivial and pointless but still a big deal to a fan news goes tonight:

The Angels have won three in a row for the first time this year, swept a series for the first time this year, and are now above .500 for the first time since Opening Day of 2013, almost thirteen months ago. This is a good thing and we should continue to improve in order to keep me happy. (Which is, after all, what everything is about, right?)

The Kings are in the playoffs and played like crap the first two games of the series against the San Jose Sharks and then played better but lost the third game in overtime. In the history of the league, only nine previous teams had ever gone down 0-3 to start a best-of-seven series and even taken it to a seventh game, and only three of those won the series and moved on. Tonight, the Kings are the fourth with a convincing win.

The Vuvuzela of Victory sings its sweet song tonight!

As far as it not being advisable for me to be operating any machinery more complex than a pencil or pen, let’s see if I can at least debunk an urban legend about pencils and pens.

It’s a common misconception or urban myth that in the 1960’s NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pen that would write in zero gravity — while the Russians used a pencil.

This is obviously an object lesson on how stupid and wasteful NASA is with your hard-earned tax dollars, and how pragmatic and straightforward the Russians are.

Except, none of it’s true.

  1. NASA didn’t spend or “waste” millions of dollars. The pen company (Parker?) spent a few thousand dollars of their own money and then sold pens to NASA (and anyone else who wanted to buy one) for a few dollars.
  2. There was a damn good reason that NASA wanted a pen. Pencil “lead” is actually graphite, i.e., carbon, and it’s a very good conductor of electricity and highly flammable when powdered. As one writes, it gives off a powder, which in zero gravity floats around the cabin, and then can find its way into a switch or circuit. A small short circuit like this can be serious, and if there’s an arc of any kind, in a high-oxygen, low-pressure environment, that can be explosive and deadly.
  3. The Russians knew this and also started buying and using “space pens” when they became available.

So the next time someone spouts this tale, especially if they’re using it to bash NASA, let them know that they should check their facts. It’s a great story (I told it for years myself) but it’s wrong. At this point, the truth is actually far more interesting.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll pontificate on something deep and philosophical. Wait, tomorrow’s Flash Fiction Thursday. How about Friday for deep thoughts? I’ll pencil it in. (Pun intended, of course!)

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Filed under CAF, LA Angels, LA Kings, Space, Writing

March 31, 2014 · 23:27

Word Herding, Number Wrangling, And Opening Day

Today has been a good day, with many fears faced and hurdles attacked. As expected, the fears and hurdles are ahead on points, but the day isn’t done yet and I’m still swinging.

Many numbers both small and large have been herded into order so that my income taxes can be prepared. Given the last year’s employment (or lack thereof) situation, I’m not looking forward to getting any good news when all is said and done in the next two weeks. At this point, if the news is bad, at least that will mean that the news won’t be really, really bad.

But it’s necessary at times to realize that there aren’t any good alternatives, or at least none that you’re going to like. Even then it’s possible and generally necessary to distinguish between the bad and the catastrophic, choosing, and working to live with the bad and move on.

In better news, I’ve also herded many words today, something that’s also been put off for far too many days and weeks. There are always plenty of excuses to not get it done, when what is needed is a single reason to get it done anyway.

Today, I’m at 2,308 words on my way to 3,000, so it has been a good day.

More importantly, I was reading over the Chapter Six I wrote weeks ago, in order to get my head back into the story for Chapter Seven. And I really liked what I had written. It was making me laugh reading it and I was almost having trouble believing that it had come from my brain. I really like the characters, I really like the wacky, madcap, slapstick story I’ve got going.

I’m still a very green novice, groping my way through this process, but that feels like it’s a good sign.

Through it all today, it’s “Baseball New Year’s Day,” opening day for most teams. (We won’t count those two games last week in Australia or last night’s gala opening game in San Diego.) Even if your team didn’t win today, there are still 161 games left. If your team won today — don’t get cocky, kid.

As Crash Davis said in “Bull Durham” (truly one of the finest movies ever made):

“Some days you win. Some days you lose. Some days…it rains.”

That’s still some really deep stuff there.

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Filed under Job Hunt, LA Angels, Paul, Writing

March 28, 2014 · 22:48

Yet Another LA Shaker

Eleven days ago we had a magnitude 4.4 earthquake and I wrote about it and earthquakes in general. The tl;dr version: “Earthquakes are scary and can be deadly.”

Tonight we’re shaking again, this time a little bit more “briskly”, shall we say. It probably wasn’t quite up to shaking “violently”, at least not from the reports I’ve seen yet, but it’s early. This only happened less than an hour ago.

Tonight’s preliminary reading was a magnitude 5.1 earthquake in La Habra, just south of the Los Angeles – Orange county line. (It was initially reported as a 5.4, but the instant readings usually are corrected down a bit as more data is received.) A 5.1 shake is still a long way from “The Big One” (it’s coming folks, really, really) but it’s big enough to cause some damage.

So far there are only reports of some “moderate” damage with no details on what that means, other than one report of a road being blocked by a rock slide and a local fire station that’s been damaged. All of Disneyland’s rides had their safety systems kick and and stop the rides, and now they’re shutting down the park early. A few pictures of pantries and shelves dumped on the floor are popping up. We hope that there aren’t any injuries, but a 5.1 is strong enough to potentially cause them. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if by morning there aren’t at least a few dozen homes and buildings with some significant damage.

The other bit of news that’s coming out early in this one is that the earthquake occurred right on the Puente Hills thrust fault, which is the fault that was responsible for the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake. That was a 5.9 quake that killed eight people, injured hundreds, destroyed 123 homes and over 1,000 apartments, damaged over 500 homes and 2,000 apartments, with a total of over $350 million in damage. Even more importantly, it’s the fault line that runs straight under downtown Los Angeles. The downtown with all of those really, really tall skyscrapers that have never truly had the earthquake building codes tested much out in the real world.

One might be tempted to say, “Well, so what? This wasn’t a 7.5 or an 8.5 quake on that fault and all of those buildings didn’t get tested. It was just a 5.1 in La Habra.” The thing is, it’s a known phenomenon that some earthquakes, particularly quakes in the high 4’s and 5’s, are “pre-shocks,” the opposite of aftershocks. It’s not a huge likelihood, but it’s sure enough to make the USGS, Cal Tech, the fire, police, emergency services, the city emergency command posts, and everyone else involved stay on their toes tonight. The odds drop off by the hour, and they’re sort of long to begin with. On the other hand, if it does happen, we’re all gonna be in a world of hurt.

The other thing that I’m noticing with this quake (and the one eleven days ago) is how much information is available instantly on social media, particularly Twitter. CalTech and the USGS have bots set up that you can follow (I do) which will tell you immediately the time and location and magnitude of any quake, with a link to a map. That bot has been lighting up Twitter, with over twenty aftershocks in the last hour.

I also follow the LA Times on Twitter, as well as several news reporters and stations. When something like this happens, you start finding out about it far, far faster than you ever did before. (Remember the shooting at LAX last year where the TSA agent got killed? The first news reports of that were from Twitter, particularly since there were some celebrities near the site of the shooting and they have LOTS of followers.) You need to use some common sense in interpreting the raw information and know who to trust and who to take with a grain of salt. Having said that, it’s astonishing to me to see how fast information gets out if you know who to follow and get it from.

Finally, the Angels and Dodgers were playing a pre-season, exhibition game at Dodger Stadium when the quake hit. Listen to one of the great voices of the game, Vin Scully, describe it. The man’s got a story for every occasion, and he’s always calm and comforting. I swear, he wouldn’t change that tone if the alien mothership landed in Dodger Stadium. And he would have a story that was relevant for the occasion.

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Filed under Disasters, LA Angels, Los Angeles

February 18, 2014 · 21:15

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Tuesday, February 18th

‘Cause my head can’t decide if it’s going to just keep throbbing endlessly or if it’s going to explode and scatter skull shards everywhere, that’s why.

  • When did the California CHP start using radar on the freeways? I thought they couldn’t do that.
  • I hate repairing toilets.
  • Regardless of #1 above, have I mentioned more than a few hundred times how much I hate people who drive at 65 in the fast lane when it’s clear, dry, and otherwise wide open traffic?
  • I thought that these Olympics we were supposed to have four or five cable channels going 24/7 with every event available live, or at least something close to that. We have one channel on about twelve hours a day (night) with live stuff, sometimes a second channel for four hours or so, then the prime time replay stuff for three or four hours. Did I get that wrong?
  • No, I didn’t get a speeding ticket, nor did I get pulled over and then charm my way out of it
  • Computers are wonderful — right up to the point where they totally suck.
  • Speaking of NBC’s Olympics coverage (we were, weren’t we?), who is this guy they have doing color commentary on the biathlon and Nordic skiing events? Can we get this guy some decaf?
  • You know that you’re STILL in love with the convertible when you drive with the top down even when it’s only 55 degrees and foggy.
  • Spring training games start in eight days!
  • Why does a computer that was working just fine yesterday suddenly not be able to connect on ANY web browser (IE, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera) while still well connected to the internet and other programs (Skype, Norton) can connect just fine?
  • I’m so glad that I can follow planetary scientists, astronauts, and other space and astronomy groups and individuals on Twitter.
  • “Game Of Thrones” Season Three is out on DVD now — time for another binge watching day! This time we’ll be ready when the new season starts next month. (“You know nothing, Paul Willett!”)

Remember, if it weren’t for the last minute, there wouldn’t be time to get anything done at all.

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Filed under Astronomy, Computers, Entertainment, Juicy Chunks, LA Angels, Space

February 16, 2014 · 22:11

Mood Triggers Out Of Balance

Tasks that should be simple and quick turn out to be more complex and take longer.

Every time I get one thing done, it seems like three or four more pop up.

Something that should be a joy is suddenly turning into a source of stress.

Something that’s been a serious source of stress for well over a year is getting worse, not better.

Something that I thought would be routine is turning to real work.

Something that I’m doing to get away from some of the other stressful things is turning into the exact same type of stressful things.

26% of Americans believe the Sun orbits around the Earth.

I’m trying to obey Wheaton’s Law (“Don’t be a dick!”) but it’s getting harder by the day.

Some people I admire and yearn to be compatriots with are again this week demonstrating that they haven’t read Wheaton’s Law.

Then they’re doubling down on stupid and toxic — like that ever worked.

That’s all enough to put you right off of your fresh fried lobster. The hopeful, good, uplifting things I need to balance them out?

Saturday Night Safety Dance.

Occasional funny videos passed on by friends.

Spring training’s under way.

The LA Kings’ players in Olympic hockey are playing well and Team USA is playing well.

Writing.

No pressure guys, but I’m really going to be needing to see another Stanley Cup and another World Series victory if this shit keeps up. A Super Bowl next year wouldn’t hurt either.

And no, it has not escaped my attention that in that list of the Forces of Good, one of these things is not like the others.

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Filed under Job Hunt, LA Angels, LA Kings, Paul

February 14, 2014 · 21:23

Not Celebrating Valentine’s Day

First, a side rant — why are there ads for the last two or three weeks that start with, “Valentine’s Day is February 14th!!!”

Valentine’s Day is not a “floating” holiday like Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, and so on. It’s fixed on the calendar, like Christmas, Groundhog Day, or New Year’s Day. So why do these advertising morons feel it is so freakin’ necessary to remind us over and over and over what day the “holiday” falls on?

Of course, they also have ads that say “Christmas Day is December 25th!!!” and “New Year’s Day is January 1st!!!” God help us, they probably have ads that say “The Fourth of July is July 4th!!!” So, in the end it boils down to:

  1. Are we really that stupid?
  2. Are we just fine and the ad agencies only think we’re that stupid?
  3. Are we just fine and the ad agencies are that stupid?
  4. Are we all freakin’ idiots? (Sorry, this last option might be a trick question.)

As for the “holiday” itself, The Long-Suffering Wife and I are not today and never have celebrated Valentine’s Day. I consider this to be a good thing, and not just because I don’t have to “perform” by buying an appropriate amount of candy or flowers or jewelry or whatever.  Our lack of fervor over this supposed holiday is actually due to The Long-Suffering Wife’s views on the day, and I happen to agree with her reasons.

Others dislike the holiday for their own (highly valid) reasons. For example, The Bloggess refers to it as “a ridiculous non-holiday made to make everyone feel insecure about their relationship” among other things. Then there are some wonderful cartoons from Ursula Vernon at her Red Wombat Studios blog, especially this one that’s been passed around the internet circles that I lurk in. There are many more “Valentine Day deniers” that are left as an exercise for the student to find.

But that’s not why The Long-Suffering Wife has always instructed me to ignore Valentine’s Day and forbidden me to get her anything for the day. (Well, when she first told me she was The Should-Have-Known-Better Fiancé instead of The Long-Suffering Wife, but that’s a different story.) Her reasoning is that because of the social pressure and marketing and sales tsunami that Valentine’s Day involves, too many couples, and guys in particular, are forced to perform and buy things and demonstrate their love on that one arbitrary day. It’s all marketing and peer pressure and fear of punishment, having little to do with actual love.

Her view is that, if you really love someone and care for them and want them to be happy, you should show that every day, not on this one day picked out by Hallmark and Madison Avenue.

This is a wise point of view. We celebrate other holidays and events, such as Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, and so on. But we also both make a point to try to make each other happy every day, as well as find reasons to give each other something special now and then. When I send her flowers at work a couple of times a year, it’s not because “IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY AND HALLMARK HAS BEATEN ME INTO SUBMISSION AND I GOT SOME $2 FLOWERS FOR $20 FROM A GUY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FREEWAY OFFRAMP”, it’s because I want her to be happy and surprised and reminded that I lover her.

This is neither a subtle or a small difference. The Long-Suffering Wife is wise.

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