To about 99.99% of us, this is a “You took this picture on purpose? WHY??” image. It’s ordinary, routine, boring, background, about as noteworthy and memorable as a bucket of old, cold, filthy mop water.
To about 00.01% of us, that’s exactly why the picture got taken. It’s routine and ordinary, but it’s a tiny bit of life that will someday be forgotten, a jumble of detail that actually say quite a bit about us with its patterns and flaws.
And having one of those brains, I can’t help but wonder what an alien intelligence would make of it, desperate for information about us, trying to understand and learn. How many boring, routine, ordinary pictures like this would it take to build up a semi-detailed picture or simulation of our world, to fill it with context?
But it’s just one picture, without explanation, without the accompanying Muzak. No context for you, at least not without much more content to build an overarching context in which this image adds additional context.
Coincidentally, it’s also back to the office for me, at least for a couple of hours.
In the last fifteen and three-quarter months I’ve been back in my office maybe five or six times, but it’s always been on a Saturday as I was coming home from the hangar. My office is right next to the freeway so I get off, drop off documents or pick them up, then get right back on the freeway at the next onramp. Easy peasy! But there’s never been anyone there. While I’ve seen everyone on a regular basis in one Zoom meeting or Teams call after another, I haven’t actually seen any of my co-workers (all of whom I really enjoy working with, as unusual as that might be for some, sadly) in 15.75 months. Which is REALLY weird, because I had only been working there five and a half months when the pandemic and quarantine hit. So I’ve now been working remotely three times longer than I’ve been working in person.
But things are opening up a tiny little bit, and while I’ll most likely be continuing to work from home for the foreseeable future, there are a couple of small things that finally need to get taken care of in person, so it’s back to the morning commute! At least for a day.
Have you ever visited a town far away where you grew up and gone back to drive by your old house? Yeah, I’ve done that in at least five or six places. (Not to mention the Pomelo house that we moved out of three years ago after 27+ years, since it’s less than a mile away.) It’s going to be odd like that.
First of all, when the dashboard of your car starts giving you a warning message that says the battery in your key fob is getting weak and needs to be replaced…
…change the freakin’ battery. They cost about $2 and it takes about thirty seconds and can be done without tools or any handyman or handywoman skills at all!
Secondly, the clever designers of modern cars apparently all assume that a significant owners will ignore Lesson #1 and will end up being out someplace when that final erg in the battery goes out and their car won’t start, the doors won’t lock or unlock, and NOTHING will work. So they put in failsafes.
Most of these key fobs have actual, physical keys embedded in them, keys which can be removed and used to lock and unlock the doors. (I knew that already.) Some (like Hissy, our Honda Fit) allow you to use that embedded physical key to be inserted into some secret slot on the dashboard or steering wheel and start the car. But Volvos don’t. However…
On Volvos, there’s some sort of very low power, very close proximity chip embedded in the key fob (probably like those RFID tags that they hide in clothing and DVDs and Blu-Ray packages to keep them from being shoplifted) so that if you physically hold the “dead” key fob against the “Start” button in the dashboard, the car can be started.
Very clever, these engineers, assuming that sooner or later (and probably BOTH) I’ll be an idiot!
I’m only semi-functional tonight – it’s been a lot of days of work in a row, and there’s another big thing kicking off this week, so there are few neurons to spare.
But one thing that’s a great diversion for a few minutes here or there when I need a break is watching all of the videos from the volcanic eruption in southwest Iceland.
It started on March 19th, with a mid-sized eruption. Lots of lava, but no huge ash clouds like the eruption a few years back in northern Iceland that shut down air traffic to and from Europe for weeks. No toxic gas emissions that could kill whole towns or groups of nearby spectators and scientists, so the scientists and spectators came in droves.
Then, after a few weeks, a series of smaller fissures started opening up along a line to the northeast. Most of these petered out, but one cinder cone started growing and growing and has now become the main vent. For a while there were spectacular fountains of lava, but these have died down a little bit and been replaced with little surges of lava ever ten minutes or so. Every ten minutes or so 24/7 for weeks, and the valley that all of these vents are in has finally filled.
A couple weeks ago the valley overflowed down into a canyon and started filling up a small valley below, and some time in the last couple of days a second spot overflowed in a HUGE push and now that lower valley is threatening to overflow. Once that happens it’s only a half-mile or so down the hill to the ocean, cutting the Southern Ring Road in the process.
There are six or seven or so cameras set up, all streaming online 24/7. My favorite site is a combination of four screens, one with a map that’s updated every day, the other three cycling through five or six different cameras:
(Image: Tokolosh YouTube Channel)
There are lots of videos on YouTube showing time lapses and other great events through the whole twelve week event so far, with no end in sight.
Like the drones that keep flying over and suffering the consequences of density altitude:
Good advice there. (From “Bull Durham” of course, when Crash first meets Nuke.)
Again, it always gets down to balance.
On the one hand, one can’t blindly blunder through life without two brain cells to rub together. (Well, one can … but then you’ll end up a US Representative from Georgia, or Florida, or Texas, or maybe even California.)
On the other hand, one can’t over analyze and micromanage every decision to the point where nothing ever gets done.
Balance.
And sometimes you just have to make your best guess and get your ass in gear.
I might have mentioned this a few times a year over the past 8+ years. The fact that I already have used the Bull Durham quote for a post at least once proves that. The fact that I love that movies so much would be another, but I digress.
I guess tonight’s the night to take another whack at our deceased equine friend.
Or, as I learned in high school (thanks, Kevin), “Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things!)”
Or as I learned from 80’s Los Angeles drivetime AM radio, “EGBOK! – Everything’s Gonna Be OK!” (Have I told that story here? That’s one of the better ones…)
June’s starting soon.
There are quests and adventures to be undertaken, fears to be faced down, monsters to be slain.
I was digging way back in the cavernous depths of the back porch freezer today when I stumbled upon an ancient popsicle.
It was grape.
In one moment I was overwhelmed with the memories of the simple childhood joy of a grape popsicle on a hot day.
In the next I was being pummeled by the reality of being covered with sticky, purple goo – the carpet, my jeans, my shirt, my hands…
I almost got more of it ON me than I got IN me.
Which I now realize was also one of those fond childhood memories. If only I had a way to get hosed down by an adult before being allowed back into the house. 😔
Is it not a thing of beauty? Perfectly packed and arranged. 99.9999% full.
I don’t know if younger people, nerds or not, dad or not, take perfect loading of the dishwasher as a quest akin to that for The Holy Grail. For that matter, it might just be me, period.
Either way, I’m pretty good at the dishwasher packing zen, but this was clearly a standout effort last night. In fact, I just might have posted something like this before. (Eight+ years is a long time to keep track.)
7,111 images. (About 90% are taken by me. The rest are images from the news, from cell phone screen captures, and so on.)
62 videos.
7 audio clips.
2.6K comments.
And despite the pandemic and lockdown and quarantine (or possibly because of it) I’m now getting these “You’re on a 384-day streak on We Love The Stars Too Fondly!” notices every day on the app.
Earth Day – let’s hope we’re actually waking up to the danger we’re in regarding human-related climate change.
On my secondary computer’s monitors I often have some sort of video running as background if I’m not using the system at the moment. Today was an Earth Day theme, although not intentionally. But at one point I looked at it and realized that my subconscious had set it up that way.
On the left, a map and three camera angles on the Geldingadalir and Langhoil volcanoes erupting for the several weeks in Iceland. Showing the raw power that the Earth can display.
On the right, the Cornell Lab FeederWatch Cam at Sapsucker Woods shows us the animal kingdom (grackle in the tray, a downy woodpecker just leaving the suet feeder in the center, and a couple of redwing blackbirds hanging off the feeder on the right) and the beauty of the lakes and woods coming to life after a long winter.
As much as I dream of leaving the Earth, and as much as I hope to see the day when people live on the moon, Mars, an asteroid, or a large space habitat, I also understand that for the moment, the Earth is the only game in town. It’s a spectacular place. Enjoy it. Appreciate it. Share it.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 