Life comes at you fast

Ramblings Post #333
I'm not sure when I stopped really watching TV. In the past few years my time in front of the tube has dwindled, and I'm not talking about it merely being replaced with another digital access port. I read more now, and study the news more. Okay, some gaming, but nothing to obsess over. But as time passes, and I get more into the news, I'm starting to understand the appeal of the information bubble. Because it's scary out here ya'll. And it's coming at us wide open.  

I used to have time to craft something. After figuring out what I wanted to comment on and determining if I even had a point, I'd sketch out an outline with a few points I'd hope to hit early during the day. Then do a little research throughout the day between other things like working or going to the bathroom. At the end of the day when I got home I would write it up, but then let it marinate a day before I'd go back over it, teasing out threads of ideas and smoothing over rough prose. Some of those posts were almost little works of art if you broaden the definition of art far enough and squint real, real hard.

But things seem to be happening so much faster as of late, and my artful style doesn't seem to be up the challenge. From Facebook shooters to the latest airline mugging to Cheeto itching to start World War III to there being a fire under every bridge in Atlanta  and the imminent return to some kind of lawless wasteland due to a lack of roads, my snark has been muted for lack of time to develop anything good. The seemingly constant barrage of notable happenings is threatening to turn this into a continuous "Things I meant to comment on" series, which is a kind of less animated less funny not  on television "Last Week Tonight." This I would not be satisfied with.

I may have to move to a smaller blurb format, a kind of micro blogging to amounts to little more than possibly unfunny meme's and one liners that fail to capture the nuance of why I think XYZ topic might so absurd. I may have to switch to a kind of monthly, or bi-weekly, which leaves a lot to be desired in that so much of it will be past tense in a world just trying to hold it in the road. Maybe templates, where I just plug in each outrage? I'm not sure but I know that I have a lot to say about a lot of shit and not getting a chance to say it. Ugh.

So, in the interest of fair play, good cooking, sportsmanship and properly aged cheese, I will simply have to try my best. How this is gonna work out I have no idea because I've got several other things I'm trying to get done, but trying i better than standing still.

Barkeep, let me get a...no, that try thing starts tomorrow. And sleep better after a drink or five.

Charlie Murphy RIP

Death comes too quick.

We almost shouldn't know who Charlie Murphy is. In the game of Hollywood unlike the music industry, it's rare that family catches on, excluding of course the Wayans conglomerate. But there was something authentic about Charlie, a real person in an unreal situation. Although he'd been around for a while because his brother was mega-star Eddie Murphy, he didn't really catch on until he started sharing his stories of what went on when nobody was looking. True stories of stars being themselves. The kind of stories that us non-famous people would tell each other about each other when we sit down with a few drinks and reminisce.

Lately, he'd started to carve out his own little space. Better acting roles, some standup comedy, and becoming famous in his own right. I think he'd figured out a way to be more than just himself, and was actually acting. And he wasn't bad. 

I bet he's in heaven right now, challenging Prince to a rematch. And afterwards, they'll have pancakes.

Hey Atlanta, how about mass transit now, eh?

Ramblings Post #332
Atlanta is a car city. We have a mass transit system that people have fought tooth and nail against since its inception and now, well, here we are. It's gonna be a long hot summer. And the city is for the most part gonna be divided in half. The days of the floating party, the caravan of fun and the city wide club hopping might just be on hold for a minute. I'm not even going to talk about how the Metro Area Rail and Transportation Authority is going to have to bring it, and bring it hard. Since after all, ....nobody saw this coming.  *snicker*

Thursday evening, a bridge section of I-85, a major artery for the city of Atlanta, collapsed after the structure gave way during what could only be properly described as a conflagration. A big, roaring flame. Apparently just plain old fire can melt steel beams, who knew? Even worse it feel over a section right by another major artery, Piedmont Road. This will only compound the problem, as I'll explain later. This whole process will take months, at minimum four or five, to repair and should shut down not one but two major thoroughfares that connect the Northern suburbs and the rest of Atlanta. We might not be a car city much longer. 

This is the year Marta finally gets properly funded folks! Marta card sales are already up 80% and it's only the first day! Mark your calendar because if a catastrophe that will split the metro region in half won't do it, nothing will. Nothing.

The city of Atlanta is funny. On a map it looks roughly like the Vitruvian Man, with two major highways meeting, running together through the bulk of the city and then splitting again just above the airport. But in reality, only the northern part of the city (above I-20) means anything, as it is the focus of pretty much all development. Coincidentally, most of the black people live below I-20. Not that the two are connected, I'm just saying. A close look at the map however reveals that the city is not exactly a grid, but more a collection of paved cattle trails and footpaths that seemed like a good idea in 1820. As such, the metro area is really more a collection of roads that only incidentally connect to one another in some places, and not at all in others. This quirk of design is why the single collapsing highway section is such a problem.

Photo by Redditor - nico6426

I-85 where it runs through Atlanta is regularly used by roughly...um, EVERYBODY IN THE METRO AREA. It connects Midtown (with over 35 construction projects underway or announced) with Buckhead - the center of all things trendy in the New South. When it gets the middle of the city and meets 75 we call it the Downtown Connector.  So, kinda important. The other two main roads in the city are Peachtree Road...no, not that Peachtree, the other one, no the other other one, the one in the middle, sheesh, and Piedmont Road on the East side of town. Strangely, all three of these intersect in Buckhead. There is no counterpart on the west side of Atlanta, because there really isn't. Because that's why. And now that I-85 has fallen onto Piedmont, there is only Peachtree Road a four lane red-light riddled strip that remains.

Although some will claim it will not be that bad, because although the section of I-85 that fell is actually just north of Piedmont Road, the truth is the fire damage is extensive. Although only the one section fell, the flames touched everything around it, and even money says several other sections of the road surface above and below the area will have to be collapsed and rebuilt just to be on the safe side. More than likely one of the sections directly over Piedmont Road. And even if they don't have to bring that section down on purpose as a safety concern, the fastest way rebuild the section that did fall would involve...blocking Piedmont Road. 

Where I work, going forward referred to as the Ranch, the parking deck was half empty the day after and I had my pick of just off prime spots. The spot where I grab lunch was sparse as well. Because we had no off highway traffic a whole section of my home commute normally a pain was light and easy. But, I live INTOWN, and the highway that goes all the way around the perimeter of the city was bumper to bumper for nearly half its circumference, backing up the designated alternate routes for hours. And that's with the county in a State of Emergency and half the city told to work from home or just take the day off. I shudder to think of what's going to happen on Monday when the flood gates open. I may go to work way early. Or I mean, leave for work. When I make it is anyone's guess. 

It's gonna be a strange summer in Atlanta.

Barkeep, let me get a cold beer, some of that hot fish and some white bread.

What? You thought I was gonna make a bar-b-que joke? For shame....

If you guys could like, hurry up...

This a political post.

This presidency is just too much. From the start to now it's just keeps getting more bizarre, more fraught with questionable ideas being forth, more clearly the beginnings of a dystopian future being put together by people who don't know what dystopian means.

From the sitting President indicating he didn't think healthcare would be this hard, to the save a penny spend hundred dollars budget logic, to the weird and slightly perverted obsession with women's reproductive health, there is just so much going on that you almost can't concentrate on one thing. Which brings us to this administration's attempt to curry favor with African-American voters going forward. With some planned executive order on Historically Black Colleges and Universities swiftly approaching. a photo op was born. Invite them all up, show them the splendor that is Washington and the White House. See! See what I'm doing! With all the subtlety and charm a seventy year old New Yorker who got sued by the government for not renting to African Americans can muster.

Then this.

I remember Regan saying that he didn't feel right in the Oval Office without a jacket on. And I realize that every President has a moment of casualness in the Oval Office. From Kennedy to Johnson to Carter to Reagan to Clinton to Obama. A moment where feet are up, people are relaxed, after all, they're only human. But this is an official event. For the HBCUs. So why does Kellyanne Conway look like the the girlfriend waiting for everyone else to leave?

(Extra: Someone explain Jim Crow to DeVos. Like drag her into a classroom and teach her this by the scruff of her neck. No, HBCUs are not a great example of choice, they are an example of excellence against all odds.) 

This irritates me a base level. All of it.

I'm just gonna be over here.

Wouldn't it have been easier to...

Geek Arguments #1
I am in no small part, a bit of a geek. I've argued about Star Wars and Star Trek minutiae as though knowing how a light saber worked or untangling time paradoxes earned me money. I can argue over comics, sci-fi movies, football strategy, and even dabble a bit in video game smugness (for no reason I can think of). This time, prompted by what should be an obvious answer about a movie nobody cares about, I just have to set the record straight for nobody in particular. That and I just can't talk politics anymore for a while.    

Ben Affleck likes to relate the story that during the production of Armageddon (a terrible film that I will watch over and over) that when he asked the question "Wouldn't it have been easier to train the astronauts to drill?" that director Micheal Bay told him to "shut the f**k up." This of course was the proper answer. Because Ben's question was stupid and he should have just shut the f**k up. 

Let me state definitively that NO, it wouldn't have been easier to train astronauts to drill. Everyone would have died. Are we clear? Oh, you want an explanation?

While it is true that astronauts are smart, most holding several degrees as well as being engineers, the idea that they would be able to immediately be able to grasp all the fine points of drilling in the week or so of training they would have received is the height of elitist thinking. Proficiency or even mastery of Discipline A does not automatically translate into easy of learning semi-related Discipline B. The intellectual arrogance here is staggering, starting with the assumption that "drilling" must be easy. But rather than get into a long line of theory of the nuances of mining and instead I'm going to use the film itself show why this is terrible assumption.

Wouldn't trust them with a potato gun.

First, when the hero, Harry Stamper, arrives at NASA it's originally because government stole his drill design to use on Mars but now want to use it on the asteroid, but can't make the damned thing work. Let me say that again : a group of NASA scientists, engineers and the man the NASA director called the 'smartest man on the planet' can't figure out how to make a particular drill work after presumably weeks of going at it. Presumably one or two of the engineers present even had some mining expertise, but it still didn't help them. On the other hand, Harry the not NASA engineer arrives and after looking at the equipment for less than a minute not only tells them the issues they're probably experiencing (and he's correct) but also diagnoses the problem. But mining must be simple, right? The equipment a breeze to operate?  

Secondly, when the spaceship actually arrives on the asteroid, Harry's team faces a number of unexpected challenges. First, they overshoot the landing and instead of the intended drilling site land on an 'iron plate.' Would the less experienced trained for a week Astronaut miners have even tried to drill there? Assuming they did, the first drill bit breaks after ten feet, something Max recognizes by feel. Would a less experienced trained for a week Astronaut miner have recognized it as quickly as Max? Then, the other experienced miner Chick defers to Harry who decides they need to break out a special bit, referred to in the film as 'the judge.' Would a less experienced trained for a week Astronaut miner been able to make the determination that they weren't just unlucky? Would they have been able to handle the gas pockets, the ones the experienced miners couldn't? 

And finally, would a less experienced trained for a week Astronaut miners have taken the Time to Drill Card as gospel, dropped off the nuke and evacuated? Especially when you consider that the Astronaut who was there was prepared and willing to shoot someone did just that! The weird part is that based upon the data at hand, the Astronaut made the right call - they should have dumped the nuke because by all rights they shouldn't reached the depth needed. 

Honestly, when Chick's son called him "that salesman"...

It was only the drillers expertise that saved the entire operation. Yes, because NASA chose the drillers over the astronauts (in this movie universe) the world was saved. I'm not even going to mention the other asteroid movie of the time went exactly the other way. Okay, I'll mention it. How did that work out for them then? Right, everyone on the spaceship had to make the ultimate sacrifice so the planet only got a little blowed up. Got it? And since I've brought Deep Impact up now, anyone know why there were carrying the extra nukes? 

So, this is why to question of wouldn't sending astronauts have been simpler in Armageddon, the answer is a resounding NO. Teaching roughnecks how not to die in space clearly was. I realize that astronauts are smart. Very smart. But smart doesn't translate to a universal expertise.  

Can we let this go now? And someone tell Affleck to shut the fuck up.

Valentines...and thoughts of Love.

If you've never had a regret, then you've never been in love. 

Love rarely goes perfectly. Most of us have a regret that calls back to us when we think about love, because love is usually an unscheduled demanding mess. It's two people meeting at just the right moment in their lives to open to the possibilities, and then willing to work together to make those possibilities into something akin to tangible. Love is shared highs and lows, because we have a tendency to take the sunshine for granted if we've never stood in the rain. Love is personal growth, cooperation and sacrifice in one constantly changing little corner of reality you're trying to make into a cozy home for your soul. But because it's not neat, not pre-cast, not set, and directions vary, things don't always come out just right. And it those mistakes we make, those moments where we feel our hearts hang in the balance, that we come to regret.  

Far too often we are just living our lives and end up with love unexpectedly, stumbling across it like a root in the dark.  Unsure in our actions because life comes with opinions but not instructions, and instead of working to an understanding of who we are and sometimes afraid of what we want, we do things with grand intentions that in time we come to regret.  Our actions are the multitude. Maybe it's benign neglect. Maybe we overwork it. Or we expect magic because magic fills our dreams. And then when something goes awry, comes regret. 

Awry? We've all said something we regretted, or perhaps worse, left something unsaid until too late.  Made assumptions that we never took the time to correct. Set our expectations too high or too low.  Or we regret giving up too soon. Or staying too long. Holding too tight or letting things get out of hand. Giving too much or not putting enough effort. Sometimes the moments we regret are seemingly insignificant, and sometimes that moment looms over us blocking out the world. And there we stand in our pathway of life, filled with regret. 

But regret meant that the feelings that birthed them were real.  That the love was real. We need our regret.  It has the potential to teach us, if only because we don't want to return to feeling. This is why love has the capacity to make us better.  And while we hope to be able use that regret to perhaps strengthen the love we have, mostly regret is a lesson we take with us going forward should we find love again.

Ah, Sporty.

As I'm not young anymore, I possess regrets. Words unspoken mostly. A few assumptions that may have limited what I thought was possible. Hopefully... I've learned. 

So why am I bringing this up? Why is this worthy of the time for me to write it and you to read it? An essay on regret on Valentine's? Because maybe you still have time to heel your regrets. Rein them in before they run away with you. A chance to ...to say the thing unsaid, or realize you've stayed too long. To get back on the course to being in love. Because even though my moments aren't always the brightest, because I've been there I don't want anyone else to have to.go. 

Love begets regret. But then love is the parent of many things.