I have managed to shock and amaze my friends and family by not only finding a woman who finds me attractive, but also in convincing her to stick around for more than a few months (in fact, we've exceeded two years now). In truth, I am more than a bit surprised and even more grateful that she has tuck with me - I can be difficult to deal with - but she has, and this is a right groovy thing.
Kaylia has many wonderful qualities, but there is one in particular that I have found is very important to me and is, unfortunately, not particularly common - but Kay has it! This quality is constant curiosity. Kaylia asks questions and tries to figure things out even when she is finding answers that don't jive with her previously held beliefs, which is a wonderful thing and something that is a great pleasure to be around.
For myself, I have a history of getting involved with women who either viewed my own tendency to do this as an amusing (and potentially annoying) personality quirk, or who simply didn't want to acknowledge it at all. One ex-girlfirend, after describing how strongly she fielt about music, asked me to tell her what I was passionate about. My answer: curiosity, finding out about the world around me. Her response: "ugh, that isn't something that a person can be passionate about!"
And so, I have been delighted to finally find someone who not only indulges this tendency of mine, but who even seems to enjoy it. When we travel, Kaylia points me to the science museums, she tries to get me to read non-fiction with her so that we both are learning simultaneously and can discuss what we have learned, and she becomes excited when she sees or hears something new.
We have been watching the old Carl Sagan series Cosmos, and in the first episode, Sagan describes how Eratosthenes made a fairly accurate calculation of the Earth's circumference in the year 230 B.C. by measuring the shadows of sticks in Alexandria and Syene on the summer solstice and working out what the curvature of the Earth would have to be. This is, to me, one of the coolest stories in science - an individual, through simple curiosity and intelligence, works out a fundamental fact underlying the world in which we live.
However, other people tend not to find this story as interesting as I do. Most folks look at me with a "what the hell is wrong with you?" look on their face when I go on about this, others simply tell me what I can go do with myself. So, Carl finished telling the story, I wondered how Kaylia would react.
She looked over at me, smiling, and exclaimed "THAT is so cool!"
Yeah, she's a good match for me. Any wonder that I love her?
Showing posts with label These People I Know. Show all posts
Showing posts with label These People I Know. Show all posts
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Gaming in a Haunted Hotel
My two main hobbies are Role-Playing Games and collecting ghost stories. So, this past weekend, I had a rare opportunity to combine the two by taking part in my friend Matt Steele's Dead of Winter gaming mini-convention at the Brookdale Lodge in Felton, in the mountains of Santa Cruz County.
It was a fuckin' blast! Loads of fun were had by all, and I am really hoping that it happens again next year.
The hotel itself is reputed to be haunted, and it can be a damn creepy place under normal circumstances. We happened to be there during a large winter storm, and so it was even weirder a place than normal.
The Brookdale lodge is a conglomeration of several different buildings - three buildings containing hotel rooms and a few shops, the lodge itself which contains the hotel's lobby, a strange room below the hotel's swimming pool through which you can watch swimmers (when the pool is open) - kinda' a voyeur's creepy dream, really - a stage, two bars (only one of which is currently open), and the brook room - a large (and formerly opulent) dining room built above a creek channel, with the creek visible (and audible) from all parts of the room. The last building is a log cabin that has been connected to the rest of the building by a hallway. Our games took place in the log cabin, with four tables set out and a a group of players surrounding each table. For a convention-newbie such as myself, this was ideal - all of the players were there by invitation, and each of them was an excellent player, leading to some of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I have ever had. I tried some new games, and was pleased with both their ease-of play and their overall effect, and my fellow players were a fun, friendly bunch who were nothing short of amazing to game with.
Matt set up a great event, and his long-time partner Lisa deserves a lot of credit for keeping things running smoothly even when matters began to go awry. The general feeling amongst the players was that if Lisa was around, the situation was well in hand and all would be well - we were all very, very grateful.
And things did go wonderfully awry (no sarcasm, it really was great). The theme of the mini-con was horror games - every game ran had a horror plot line, most of them with a supernatural bent. In the storm, we quickly discovered that portions of the Lodge's roof and ceiling have gone missing over the years (though thankfully not in our play area) and water poured inside and pooled on the ground in many of the rooms. Some of the walls had experienced excessive rot from years of neglect, and water and cold air came in through them. The end result was that, between the ghost stories already in circulation about the place and the lodge's decrepit state, the place was creepy as hell and really fed the mood for running horror games.
Towards the end of the first game session on Saturday, the lights went out. We were able to continue with sufficient light between flashlights and the daylight that made it in through the locked window shutters, but with sunset approaching, we needed to do something. Luckily, Lisa and a few of the attendees quickly gathered electric camp lanterns and candles and began to bring some light into the gaming room, even if only in small pools at each table.
For any other event, the loss of electrical power and a decrepit building would have been a detriment. For this event, it was a boon. The reduced lighting, added to by the fact that we had to pass in the dark through one of the allegedly more haunted rooms to get to or from the gaming room, added to the surreal, creepy feel. The damp under our feet when we walked into or out of the gaming room added to the on-edge feeling essential to a good ghost story (and by extension, a good horror game). The games became more fun, and the attendees more excited. When power was restored around midnight, many of the attendees demanded that the lights be turned off near their tables to preserve the atmosphere that had built up during the evening.
It was, to put it simply, fucking awesome.
While there, I naturally went about looking for things to add to the ghost stories that I have collected for this place. There were a few other visitors, not related to the gaming con, who were there specifically to stay at a haunted hotel, included a pair of teenagers and the mother of one of them who were there as a sixteenth birthday present. They reported hearing voices and then a crash from an empty room - not unusual for a building with weird acoustics, a gaming convention, and a deteriorating roof, but they were good and spooked (it probably helped that some of my fellow gamers took to jumping out at people in the dark).
I also took a number of photos in the darkened lodge, such as:
And here's an interesting set. Both of these were taking in the Brook Room, less than 30 seconds apart. I have no idea why one has fog over it and the other doesn't. My girlfriend suggests that the foggy photo may have captured my breath (it was very cold, and out breath was condensing), and I suppose that this is a perfectly plausible explanation.
While it likely has a pretty simple explanation, seeing this appear on my camera's view screen on a dark and rainy night was an eerie experience.
All in all, it was a great weekend. I hope that this happens again next year, as I would love to game these people again.
It was a fuckin' blast! Loads of fun were had by all, and I am really hoping that it happens again next year.
The hotel itself is reputed to be haunted, and it can be a damn creepy place under normal circumstances. We happened to be there during a large winter storm, and so it was even weirder a place than normal.
The Brookdale lodge is a conglomeration of several different buildings - three buildings containing hotel rooms and a few shops, the lodge itself which contains the hotel's lobby, a strange room below the hotel's swimming pool through which you can watch swimmers (when the pool is open) - kinda' a voyeur's creepy dream, really - a stage, two bars (only one of which is currently open), and the brook room - a large (and formerly opulent) dining room built above a creek channel, with the creek visible (and audible) from all parts of the room. The last building is a log cabin that has been connected to the rest of the building by a hallway. Our games took place in the log cabin, with four tables set out and a a group of players surrounding each table. For a convention-newbie such as myself, this was ideal - all of the players were there by invitation, and each of them was an excellent player, leading to some of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I have ever had. I tried some new games, and was pleased with both their ease-of play and their overall effect, and my fellow players were a fun, friendly bunch who were nothing short of amazing to game with.
Matt set up a great event, and his long-time partner Lisa deserves a lot of credit for keeping things running smoothly even when matters began to go awry. The general feeling amongst the players was that if Lisa was around, the situation was well in hand and all would be well - we were all very, very grateful.
And things did go wonderfully awry (no sarcasm, it really was great). The theme of the mini-con was horror games - every game ran had a horror plot line, most of them with a supernatural bent. In the storm, we quickly discovered that portions of the Lodge's roof and ceiling have gone missing over the years (though thankfully not in our play area) and water poured inside and pooled on the ground in many of the rooms. Some of the walls had experienced excessive rot from years of neglect, and water and cold air came in through them. The end result was that, between the ghost stories already in circulation about the place and the lodge's decrepit state, the place was creepy as hell and really fed the mood for running horror games.
Towards the end of the first game session on Saturday, the lights went out. We were able to continue with sufficient light between flashlights and the daylight that made it in through the locked window shutters, but with sunset approaching, we needed to do something. Luckily, Lisa and a few of the attendees quickly gathered electric camp lanterns and candles and began to bring some light into the gaming room, even if only in small pools at each table.
For any other event, the loss of electrical power and a decrepit building would have been a detriment. For this event, it was a boon. The reduced lighting, added to by the fact that we had to pass in the dark through one of the allegedly more haunted rooms to get to or from the gaming room, added to the surreal, creepy feel. The damp under our feet when we walked into or out of the gaming room added to the on-edge feeling essential to a good ghost story (and by extension, a good horror game). The games became more fun, and the attendees more excited. When power was restored around midnight, many of the attendees demanded that the lights be turned off near their tables to preserve the atmosphere that had built up during the evening.
It was, to put it simply, fucking awesome.
While there, I naturally went about looking for things to add to the ghost stories that I have collected for this place. There were a few other visitors, not related to the gaming con, who were there specifically to stay at a haunted hotel, included a pair of teenagers and the mother of one of them who were there as a sixteenth birthday present. They reported hearing voices and then a crash from an empty room - not unusual for a building with weird acoustics, a gaming convention, and a deteriorating roof, but they were good and spooked (it probably helped that some of my fellow gamers took to jumping out at people in the dark).
I also took a number of photos in the darkened lodge, such as:
And here's an interesting set. Both of these were taking in the Brook Room, less than 30 seconds apart. I have no idea why one has fog over it and the other doesn't. My girlfriend suggests that the foggy photo may have captured my breath (it was very cold, and out breath was condensing), and I suppose that this is a perfectly plausible explanation.
While it likely has a pretty simple explanation, seeing this appear on my camera's view screen on a dark and rainy night was an eerie experience.
All in all, it was a great weekend. I hope that this happens again next year, as I would love to game these people again.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Instant Messenger Blues
I dislike Instant Messenger.
Actually, that's not quite accurate.
I hate Instant Messenger with the fury of an army of Hun overtaking a Roman fortress, and I firmly believe that the developers of Instant Messenger should be quartered and their remains placed on pikes as a warning to others who might foolishly walk the same path as they.
Yeah, that's more accurate.
My first exposure to Instant Messenger came when I was a senior in college. I had logged into my sister's AOL account (yeah, remember when AOL was actually generally considered to be a good service provider? You know, right before they saturated the market with poor service and everyone discovered that they were a crappy provider.), and I was online browsing for something or other (I'd like to think I was looking up all manner of sciency goodness or reading up on history, but being as how I was 22 and bored, I was probably looking for porn). Somebody, probably a teenager, sent me an Instant message:
"Hey doll"
Truly a latter-day Don Juan. And they say that romance is dead.
I wrote back:
"huh?"
To which they wittily responded:
"Hey doll. Are you sexy?"
Befuddled, I simply responded:
"Fuck off"
To which they wrote:
"Don't be like that, doll. What do you look like?"
Ahh, now my strategic playing-hard-to-get was working, and I delivered the coup-de-grace:
"Being as how I'm a 6'2" germanic looking guy with alot of body hair, you might not want to be calling me 'doll'."
They stopped bothering me.
So, my experience with Instant Messenger began with a half-witted adolescent trying to pick up on me while under the illusion that I was a young woman, and my experience with the program has somehow actually managed to go downhill from there. You see, worse than horny adolescents discovering Instant Messenger, my friends discovered it.
After a time, I had an AOL account (shudder), and AOL had Instant Messenger built in to the software. The AOL version had the annoying habit of popping up over whatever you happened to be doing, a feature that I was assured could be disabled but somehow always managed to be mysteriously and automatically turned back on within 20 minutes of me disabling it. So, there I would be, checking email, browsing the internet, or doing any of dozens of other activities, and I would be brought to a sudden halt as my window minimized and an instant message popped up. If I ignored it and went back to what I was doing, I would be interrupted again and again until I responded, and then they wouldn't let me go or respect my request to not be bothered with Instant Messenger. They would insist that my dislike of being interrupted in this way didn't apply to them seeing as how they were my ever-so-bestest friend (regardless of which of the myriad of people I happened to be dealing with online), and besides they had oh-so-important news to tell me about - the "news" almost always being some useless bit of gossip or thing that I didn't much care about.
And let me be clear, the people who would use Instant Messenger were not the sorts to want to notify me of actually important breaking news, or to want to contact me about an important personal matter. The people who would do that knew that I preferred telephones over text for instant communication, and therefore made use of that tool instead.
To make this more annoying, it is not as if I have ever made a secret of my loathing of this program. In fact, I make a point of displaying my hatred of it (as this blog post attests). When someone insists on communicating with me via Instant Messenger, I make a special point of letting them know that I dislike the program. It does no good, everyone still seems to think that I really want to talk with them via Instant Messenger, as if I am somehow trying to use reverse psychology to encourage them to contact me.
In addition to the problem of unwanted interruption, Instant Messenger has another problem. In a telephone conversation, you have both the words you say and how you say them (tone of voice, accent, cadence, etc.) as tools for communicating information. These are missing from Instant Messenger, and not even the most annoying of emoticons or "smileys" (easily the most irritating things to come from the internet...yes, even more irritating than lolcats) can replace the voice.
In other forms of written communication, such as email or (gasp) normal mail, you may lack the advantages of spoken communication, but you gain all of the time you need to craft your message and make your meaning clear.
Instant Messenger lacks both of these, it is as if it's designers decided to take the worst aspects of other forms of communication and combine them into one annoying whole. So, we have short messages which are expected to be responded to quickly in which you have only written text to convey information. Clearly, an inferior tool.
When I voice these objections, people invariably tell me that "you can take as long as you want to respond to an instant message, there's no rush!" Clearly these people have never tried using Instant Messenger to communicate with other humans. Outside of a work context, I have yet to have anyone try to speak with me over Instant Messenger who did not become astoundingly annoying with their constant attempts to get assurance from me that I was still online and paying attention to them whenever I was silent for more than one or two minutes.
Eventually, I escaped from AOL, and then proceeded to spend several years blissfully free of the accursed program. Occasionally, someone would encourage me to set up an Instant Messenger account with some service or another, and I would tell them in no uncertain terms what they could go do with themselves. I had to have the program on my work computer, certainly, but my coworkers have generally used it strictly for work purposes and managed to not do anything annoying. It was a wonderful time in my life.
But then, in the last few years, many of the online services that I have used for other purposes entirely have begun to add Instant Messenger as a feature, and I have again discovered that people insist on trying to talk to me via it, even when I have made my dislike for the alleged utility well known.
For example, I may be putting photos up on Facebook only to be hit with a deluge of messages from people, most of which are simply empty exchanges that could be more casually and appropriately done with email. Since Yahoo has made Instant Messenger part of its package I find it difficult to check my email without one of a myriad of people trying to talk with me - and again, turning off my online visibility seems to not work particularly well. While both Facebook and Yahoo's messenger interfaces are less intrusive than AOL's were, they still block parts of the screen that I am often attempting to look at, and must be turned off in order to actually do those things that I am trying to do.
I have found myself increasingly logging onto websites for no more than a few minutes at a time, hoping to be in and out before anyone notices that I am online. My irritation in this regard is probably furthered by the fact that I am usually on a site with this software for a specific purpose - to check email, upload photos, post a blog, etc. - and exchanging pleasantries is not included on my list of reasons to be on that site.
However, as much as I dislike Instant Messenger, everyone else seems to love it. Today while checking my email alone I have had three different people try to pull me into "conversations" using the infernal device. And as more and more websites and software packages seem to be including it, and as the people around me become less and less sensitive to the fact that I do not have any desire to carry out conversations through this program, it looks like I have a long slog ahead as I try to hide while online.
P.S. On the upside, while these folks are a bit too lenient on Satan's Own Communications Network, I am happy to see that I am not the only person who hates instant messaging.
Actually, that's not quite accurate.
I hate Instant Messenger with the fury of an army of Hun overtaking a Roman fortress, and I firmly believe that the developers of Instant Messenger should be quartered and their remains placed on pikes as a warning to others who might foolishly walk the same path as they.
Yeah, that's more accurate.
My first exposure to Instant Messenger came when I was a senior in college. I had logged into my sister's AOL account (yeah, remember when AOL was actually generally considered to be a good service provider? You know, right before they saturated the market with poor service and everyone discovered that they were a crappy provider.), and I was online browsing for something or other (I'd like to think I was looking up all manner of sciency goodness or reading up on history, but being as how I was 22 and bored, I was probably looking for porn). Somebody, probably a teenager, sent me an Instant message:
"Hey doll"
Truly a latter-day Don Juan. And they say that romance is dead.
I wrote back:
"huh?"
To which they wittily responded:
"Hey doll. Are you sexy?"
Befuddled, I simply responded:
"Fuck off"
To which they wrote:
"Don't be like that, doll. What do you look like?"
Ahh, now my strategic playing-hard-to-get was working, and I delivered the coup-de-grace:
"Being as how I'm a 6'2" germanic looking guy with alot of body hair, you might not want to be calling me 'doll'."
They stopped bothering me.
So, my experience with Instant Messenger began with a half-witted adolescent trying to pick up on me while under the illusion that I was a young woman, and my experience with the program has somehow actually managed to go downhill from there. You see, worse than horny adolescents discovering Instant Messenger, my friends discovered it.
After a time, I had an AOL account (shudder), and AOL had Instant Messenger built in to the software. The AOL version had the annoying habit of popping up over whatever you happened to be doing, a feature that I was assured could be disabled but somehow always managed to be mysteriously and automatically turned back on within 20 minutes of me disabling it. So, there I would be, checking email, browsing the internet, or doing any of dozens of other activities, and I would be brought to a sudden halt as my window minimized and an instant message popped up. If I ignored it and went back to what I was doing, I would be interrupted again and again until I responded, and then they wouldn't let me go or respect my request to not be bothered with Instant Messenger. They would insist that my dislike of being interrupted in this way didn't apply to them seeing as how they were my ever-so-bestest friend (regardless of which of the myriad of people I happened to be dealing with online), and besides they had oh-so-important news to tell me about - the "news" almost always being some useless bit of gossip or thing that I didn't much care about.
And let me be clear, the people who would use Instant Messenger were not the sorts to want to notify me of actually important breaking news, or to want to contact me about an important personal matter. The people who would do that knew that I preferred telephones over text for instant communication, and therefore made use of that tool instead.
To make this more annoying, it is not as if I have ever made a secret of my loathing of this program. In fact, I make a point of displaying my hatred of it (as this blog post attests). When someone insists on communicating with me via Instant Messenger, I make a special point of letting them know that I dislike the program. It does no good, everyone still seems to think that I really want to talk with them via Instant Messenger, as if I am somehow trying to use reverse psychology to encourage them to contact me.
In addition to the problem of unwanted interruption, Instant Messenger has another problem. In a telephone conversation, you have both the words you say and how you say them (tone of voice, accent, cadence, etc.) as tools for communicating information. These are missing from Instant Messenger, and not even the most annoying of emoticons or "smileys" (easily the most irritating things to come from the internet...yes, even more irritating than lolcats) can replace the voice.
In other forms of written communication, such as email or (gasp) normal mail, you may lack the advantages of spoken communication, but you gain all of the time you need to craft your message and make your meaning clear.
Instant Messenger lacks both of these, it is as if it's designers decided to take the worst aspects of other forms of communication and combine them into one annoying whole. So, we have short messages which are expected to be responded to quickly in which you have only written text to convey information. Clearly, an inferior tool.
When I voice these objections, people invariably tell me that "you can take as long as you want to respond to an instant message, there's no rush!" Clearly these people have never tried using Instant Messenger to communicate with other humans. Outside of a work context, I have yet to have anyone try to speak with me over Instant Messenger who did not become astoundingly annoying with their constant attempts to get assurance from me that I was still online and paying attention to them whenever I was silent for more than one or two minutes.
Eventually, I escaped from AOL, and then proceeded to spend several years blissfully free of the accursed program. Occasionally, someone would encourage me to set up an Instant Messenger account with some service or another, and I would tell them in no uncertain terms what they could go do with themselves. I had to have the program on my work computer, certainly, but my coworkers have generally used it strictly for work purposes and managed to not do anything annoying. It was a wonderful time in my life.
But then, in the last few years, many of the online services that I have used for other purposes entirely have begun to add Instant Messenger as a feature, and I have again discovered that people insist on trying to talk to me via it, even when I have made my dislike for the alleged utility well known.
For example, I may be putting photos up on Facebook only to be hit with a deluge of messages from people, most of which are simply empty exchanges that could be more casually and appropriately done with email. Since Yahoo has made Instant Messenger part of its package I find it difficult to check my email without one of a myriad of people trying to talk with me - and again, turning off my online visibility seems to not work particularly well. While both Facebook and Yahoo's messenger interfaces are less intrusive than AOL's were, they still block parts of the screen that I am often attempting to look at, and must be turned off in order to actually do those things that I am trying to do.
I have found myself increasingly logging onto websites for no more than a few minutes at a time, hoping to be in and out before anyone notices that I am online. My irritation in this regard is probably furthered by the fact that I am usually on a site with this software for a specific purpose - to check email, upload photos, post a blog, etc. - and exchanging pleasantries is not included on my list of reasons to be on that site.
However, as much as I dislike Instant Messenger, everyone else seems to love it. Today while checking my email alone I have had three different people try to pull me into "conversations" using the infernal device. And as more and more websites and software packages seem to be including it, and as the people around me become less and less sensitive to the fact that I do not have any desire to carry out conversations through this program, it looks like I have a long slog ahead as I try to hide while online.
P.S. On the upside, while these folks are a bit too lenient on Satan's Own Communications Network, I am happy to see that I am not the only person who hates instant messaging.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Lucky Number 14
As I sit here writing this, which is over a week before I post it because I'm loading the blog so that it will update even when I am too busy with fieldwork to write new updates (because I'm clever), I am sitting and having dinner in King City waiting for the work truck to cool down so that I can check the oil and determine the exact meaning of the rental vehicles "low oil" indicator.
This oil issue is ironic, as I am the lead archaeologist on a 3-D seismic oil exploration project*.
The way that this works is that a survey crew places source points across the landscape. At the source points, a vibration will be generated, either by a vibrating plate from a special truck or by a small explosive charge, and it will be measured at receiver points, where recording equipment measures the nature of the vibrations to generate a 3-D "sonar"-type map of the subsurface constituents, identifying mineral deposits including oil.
Currently, there are two survey crews, and each crew has a biologist and an archaeologist acompanying it to prevent damage to historic sites and to threatened/endangered specieis habitat. Another set of archaeologists, one that I overseee personally, works behind the surveyors, identifying and recording archaeological sites to ensure that nothing is damaged. It's a fairly good system, one that saves time and money on everyone's part, and effectively protects biological and cultural resources from damage.
However I have been working with a small crew. The reason for this is simple - the usual steady flow of field technicians has been slowed to a trickle by the introduction of a large number of projects throughout the state, and neighboring states. As a result, we have a few techs who've worked with us before, good folks all of them, and alot of new people (who, thankfully, have worked out pretty well so far).
The problem is that we need a large crew. Larger than the current one, which is already of quite a respectable size. So, you can imagine my surprise when I received a call from my boss asking me where I had gotten 14 field technicians for the project.
I did not have 14 field technicians (edited from the future: I have more than that now), and I stated as much.
"Oh, I just got off the phone with the lead biologist, and he said that you were bringing fourteen archaeologists out."
"Ummmm" I wittily replied.
"So, you don't have fourteen people?"
"Well...not as such..."
"Okay, good. I didn't remember you saying that you were bringing that many people." he said, sounding relieved.
"Where did this rumor come from?"
"Well," the boss began, I could hear him scratching his whiskers through his tone of voice "it's a seismic project. Gossip is gonna' be worse than in a small town full ofold ladies."
"ah."
Yeah, it's going to be a long few months.
*And before any of my friends or readers start commenting or complaining about me working with oil exploration teams, let me point out that these companies have enough political sway that they woud be doing this with or without environmental workers on the scene. At least as long as the environmental team, of which I lead the archaeology/cultural resources portion, is present, the damage to the environment is minimized from what it would otherwise be. It's for this reason that I will work with oil companies, the military, land developers, and just about every other entity that is usually the "bad guy" in political/environmental morality plays.
The fact of the matter is this: it's all fine and good to march, go to rallies, and circulate petitions - these activities have their place and use, but the organizations that have to clean up their act aren't going to police themselves, we all know that, and unless someone like me is willing to roll up their sleeves and actually do the work of environmental compliance, all of the various environmental laws that the rest of you are so proud of would never actually be enforced. For all the flack that I get, I am one of the few environmentalists that I know who can actually point to resources protected and laws complied with, and the others that I know who can make the same claim also work with the "bad guy" organizations - we have to, it's the only way that anything actually gets protected.
In other words, if all you do is talk, then get off of my back. I have work to do.
Why yes, I have had some very irritating conversations with self-proclaimed environmentalists. Why do you ask?
This oil issue is ironic, as I am the lead archaeologist on a 3-D seismic oil exploration project*.
The way that this works is that a survey crew places source points across the landscape. At the source points, a vibration will be generated, either by a vibrating plate from a special truck or by a small explosive charge, and it will be measured at receiver points, where recording equipment measures the nature of the vibrations to generate a 3-D "sonar"-type map of the subsurface constituents, identifying mineral deposits including oil.
Currently, there are two survey crews, and each crew has a biologist and an archaeologist acompanying it to prevent damage to historic sites and to threatened/endangered specieis habitat. Another set of archaeologists, one that I overseee personally, works behind the surveyors, identifying and recording archaeological sites to ensure that nothing is damaged. It's a fairly good system, one that saves time and money on everyone's part, and effectively protects biological and cultural resources from damage.
However I have been working with a small crew. The reason for this is simple - the usual steady flow of field technicians has been slowed to a trickle by the introduction of a large number of projects throughout the state, and neighboring states. As a result, we have a few techs who've worked with us before, good folks all of them, and alot of new people (who, thankfully, have worked out pretty well so far).
The problem is that we need a large crew. Larger than the current one, which is already of quite a respectable size. So, you can imagine my surprise when I received a call from my boss asking me where I had gotten 14 field technicians for the project.
I did not have 14 field technicians (edited from the future: I have more than that now), and I stated as much.
"Oh, I just got off the phone with the lead biologist, and he said that you were bringing fourteen archaeologists out."
"Ummmm" I wittily replied.
"So, you don't have fourteen people?"
"Well...not as such..."
"Okay, good. I didn't remember you saying that you were bringing that many people." he said, sounding relieved.
"Where did this rumor come from?"
"Well," the boss began, I could hear him scratching his whiskers through his tone of voice "it's a seismic project. Gossip is gonna' be worse than in a small town full ofold ladies."
"ah."
Yeah, it's going to be a long few months.
*And before any of my friends or readers start commenting or complaining about me working with oil exploration teams, let me point out that these companies have enough political sway that they woud be doing this with or without environmental workers on the scene. At least as long as the environmental team, of which I lead the archaeology/cultural resources portion, is present, the damage to the environment is minimized from what it would otherwise be. It's for this reason that I will work with oil companies, the military, land developers, and just about every other entity that is usually the "bad guy" in political/environmental morality plays.
The fact of the matter is this: it's all fine and good to march, go to rallies, and circulate petitions - these activities have their place and use, but the organizations that have to clean up their act aren't going to police themselves, we all know that, and unless someone like me is willing to roll up their sleeves and actually do the work of environmental compliance, all of the various environmental laws that the rest of you are so proud of would never actually be enforced. For all the flack that I get, I am one of the few environmentalists that I know who can actually point to resources protected and laws complied with, and the others that I know who can make the same claim also work with the "bad guy" organizations - we have to, it's the only way that anything actually gets protected.
In other words, if all you do is talk, then get off of my back. I have work to do.
Why yes, I have had some very irritating conversations with self-proclaimed environmentalists. Why do you ask?
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Beetle Bugs Me
My friends Dave and Eva are searching for a new car. They have decided that they would like to buy one of the classic VW Beetles - an honorable enough choice by any measure. They located such a car for sale in Aptos, but they live in San Francisco and did not want to make a 4-hour round trip for a car that might be a dud. I happen to live in Scotts Valley, a short drive from Aptos, and so they requested that I take a look at the car and report back to them.
These two have been very good friends to me, and I was (and remain) more than happy to assist them with this, and it was very simple for me to do. To that end, Kay and I set out for Aptos yesterday afternoon to have a look at a 1970 VW Beetle.
I call the car's owner, and he explains where to find the car - it's not at his home, but rather parked on a street near his home. This seems kinda' odd, but, well, if you know Santa Cruz, then this isn't quite enough to suggest a real problem, or even all that odd. When I arrive, the owner, who I will call Gonzo to protect the innocent, is waiting for us. The car is beaten up, the paint oxidized, and it generally looks like the 39-year-old car that it is. While Gonzo prattled on about the quality of the vehicle, I was busy doing things like opening up the hood (or the trunk - as these cars have the engine in the rear) to look at the engine, checking for signs of rust on the chassis, and trying to see if there is anything clearly wrong with any part of the vehicle. To all of this, Gonzo seems oblivious.
We finally move on to the interior, and it's thrashed. The seats have been patched with electrical tape, some of the wire connecting the ignition are no longer contained within the dashboard, and the seat springs have completey deflated. In short, it's clearly a vehicle that has seen 4 decades of use with little repair to the interior.
Finally, as per Eva's request, I ask to take the car for a test drive. Gonzo hands me the keys and says "yeah, that's fine, but if you crash it, you've bought it, because I don't have insurance on this vehicle."
Somewhat against my better judgement*, I take the car out for a test drive anyway. I get it started, the engine is louder than Hell, and I move down the street. I get to the corner, and brake in order to slow down for the turn...and the brakes don't work at first - I have to push all the way down to get it to brake, and the ride down is squishy, the braqke cylinder is clearly on its way out. I never bring the car above 15 miles per hour, navigate around the block ot the stopping point, turn off the car and get out.
Gonzo looks up at me and asks "So, what do you think?"
"The brakes are bad" I say, waiting for his response.
He quickly replies "yeah, they could use a little attention," turning a bit so as not to be looking directly at me when he says this.
A little attention? How about a complete fucking overhaul?
Here's the thing. When Eva asked about the car, she specifically asked if it would be safe to drive from Aptos to San Francisco should she purchase it. Gonzo said that it would be. This is bullshit. The engine would probably make it, but the brakes would do exactly nothing to stop the vehicle were it moving at freeway speeds - they barely worked when it was going 15 miles per hour! One spot of bad traffic, and Eva and Dave would have been in a world of hurt, or worse.
As I was handing bac the keys and walking to my car, Gonzo began to talk about how this was "one of the few un-restored VW Bettles from its era" - said as if to imply that the fact that it was a run-down deathtrap that appeared to have not had proper maintenance was something to be proud of.
So, this guy lied to my friends to sell them something that would endanger them had they bought it. I really wanted to smack him around a bit, but luckily I have enough self control (and sufficent fear of incarceration - I'll admit it, I'm a wimp) to simply hand him the keys back and walk away. In retrospect, I should have at least pointed out the fact that what he was trying to pull with this vehcile and the brakes could easily land him in a courtroom, but I wasn't thinking clearly enough at that time.
I drove about a block away, stopped the car, pulled out my phone, and dialed Eva's number.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Eva, it's Matt."
"Oh, hi. So, what do you think of the car?"
"Well, Eva, how desperate are you for a car?"
*I say only somewhat because, frankly, I think he'd have a hard time legally forcing me to pay for a car that I was test driving because he, as the owner, hadn't bothered to insure it.
These two have been very good friends to me, and I was (and remain) more than happy to assist them with this, and it was very simple for me to do. To that end, Kay and I set out for Aptos yesterday afternoon to have a look at a 1970 VW Beetle.
I call the car's owner, and he explains where to find the car - it's not at his home, but rather parked on a street near his home. This seems kinda' odd, but, well, if you know Santa Cruz, then this isn't quite enough to suggest a real problem, or even all that odd. When I arrive, the owner, who I will call Gonzo to protect the innocent, is waiting for us. The car is beaten up, the paint oxidized, and it generally looks like the 39-year-old car that it is. While Gonzo prattled on about the quality of the vehicle, I was busy doing things like opening up the hood (or the trunk - as these cars have the engine in the rear) to look at the engine, checking for signs of rust on the chassis, and trying to see if there is anything clearly wrong with any part of the vehicle. To all of this, Gonzo seems oblivious.
We finally move on to the interior, and it's thrashed. The seats have been patched with electrical tape, some of the wire connecting the ignition are no longer contained within the dashboard, and the seat springs have completey deflated. In short, it's clearly a vehicle that has seen 4 decades of use with little repair to the interior.
Finally, as per Eva's request, I ask to take the car for a test drive. Gonzo hands me the keys and says "yeah, that's fine, but if you crash it, you've bought it, because I don't have insurance on this vehicle."
Somewhat against my better judgement*, I take the car out for a test drive anyway. I get it started, the engine is louder than Hell, and I move down the street. I get to the corner, and brake in order to slow down for the turn...and the brakes don't work at first - I have to push all the way down to get it to brake, and the ride down is squishy, the braqke cylinder is clearly on its way out. I never bring the car above 15 miles per hour, navigate around the block ot the stopping point, turn off the car and get out.
Gonzo looks up at me and asks "So, what do you think?"
"The brakes are bad" I say, waiting for his response.
He quickly replies "yeah, they could use a little attention," turning a bit so as not to be looking directly at me when he says this.
A little attention? How about a complete fucking overhaul?
Here's the thing. When Eva asked about the car, she specifically asked if it would be safe to drive from Aptos to San Francisco should she purchase it. Gonzo said that it would be. This is bullshit. The engine would probably make it, but the brakes would do exactly nothing to stop the vehicle were it moving at freeway speeds - they barely worked when it was going 15 miles per hour! One spot of bad traffic, and Eva and Dave would have been in a world of hurt, or worse.
As I was handing bac the keys and walking to my car, Gonzo began to talk about how this was "one of the few un-restored VW Bettles from its era" - said as if to imply that the fact that it was a run-down deathtrap that appeared to have not had proper maintenance was something to be proud of.
So, this guy lied to my friends to sell them something that would endanger them had they bought it. I really wanted to smack him around a bit, but luckily I have enough self control (and sufficent fear of incarceration - I'll admit it, I'm a wimp) to simply hand him the keys back and walk away. In retrospect, I should have at least pointed out the fact that what he was trying to pull with this vehcile and the brakes could easily land him in a courtroom, but I wasn't thinking clearly enough at that time.
I drove about a block away, stopped the car, pulled out my phone, and dialed Eva's number.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Eva, it's Matt."
"Oh, hi. So, what do you think of the car?"
"Well, Eva, how desperate are you for a car?"
*I say only somewhat because, frankly, I think he'd have a hard time legally forcing me to pay for a car that I was test driving because he, as the owner, hadn't bothered to insure it.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Good Line
Every once in a while, I see a line that gets me just right, a way of phrasing things that just amuses me no end. A classic example comes from Douglas Adams, who described a fleet of spaceships as "hovering int he air exaclty the way that bricks don't."
Today, I saw another example at my friend Evan's blog:
That's some good writing, Evan.
Today, I saw another example at my friend Evan's blog:
While I am not the biggest fan of McDonald's® I do find their playarea to be a convenient place to sit and talk with my wife without the need for a babysitter.
That's some good writing, Evan.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Wrath and the Aftermath
This post is my entry into this weeks’ “7 Deadly Sins” festival being hosted by Kay. This weeks sin is wrath.
****************
To my mind, wrath has always had a connotation of either revenge or justice. Indeed, it is not uncommon to hear about the “Wrath of God”, usually in reference to someone paying for some horrible wickedness. As appealing as the notion of an emotion of justice is, it isn’t actually true.
Wrath is really just a typical irrational emotion, and like most emotions it is prone to misfiring. As people, we direct wrath often not at those deserving of it, but at whoever happens to be standing there, whoever we disagree with - especially if we suspect that they may be right, or whoever we decide we don’t like at that moment regardless of the reason. We have all done it, even if only to a small degree, and we have all hurt someone who didn’t deserve to be hurt as a result.
I have an older relative on my mother’s side, who he is exactly isn’t important but suffice to say that most people would expect that he and I would have a close relationship. We don’t, and the reason is a mutual vindictive anger – in other words, wrath.
This relative and I differ on a few points. First off, while he claims to be Christian, the reality is that he is a follower of the creed “there is but one god, and his name is Reagan, and Limbaugh is his prophet.” Second, he has a very macho outlook – there are MANLY things (sports, joining the military, sex with any available woman, voting Republican) and then there are those things not worth of a truly manly man (everything that he doesn’t personally like or do). Third, he seems to believe that anyone who disagrees with him is a threat, so it’s not enough for him to disagree with you, he has to try to crush you so that you will bow to his alleged wisdom.
But, Dr. Jekyll-like, he has another side as well. He has shown himself to be concerned about maintaining family ties, planning gatherings and trips, often generously putting forth money from his own pocket in order to ensure that others may participate. He has shown a concern about the community around him, and worked for some time professionally to try to improve things.
As a kid, I was often the target of both sides.
He did take an interest in me, and often seemed to seek me out for company. However, as I was a bright but sensitive kid, lousy at sports, and with broad intellectual interests that didn’t intersect with his rather narrower ones, I was also often the target of absurd amounts of ridicule and verbal abuse. One of my sisters recalls him going out of his way at times to pick on or belittle me – though I don’t personally recall if I received this treatment more than my sisters did.
As I became a teenager, and began to form my own opinions on a variety of issues, the abuse really picked up. I took an interest in science, which meant that I disagreed with him on almost every subject contained within science. I read books on philosophy, and began to question the rigid moral code that he claimed (but didn’t tend to follow). I read a lot of history (still do), and as such didn’t agree with him on many of his cherished myths (really, you should have seen him explode when I mentioned that Columbus was, in fact, not the first person to think that the world was round). Oddly, I was usually able to keep calm and collected when talking to him – figuring that the best way to counter his bursts of, frankly rather bizarre, anger was to keep calm and try to talk like two rational people.
A typical conversation from this time period went something like this:
No, I’m no exaggerating, that’s really the way he talks to, or rather shouts at, people. The very definition of wrath – a vindictive anger directed at someone who is to be punished – even if their only crime is disagreeing on a subject of which the dispenser of wrath has no real knowledge.
As you can imagine, being steam-rolled over like that gets old, as does having someone insist that you’re the one accepting whatever you’re spoon-fed when, in fact, you’re the only one who’s actually basing their opinions on evidence. However, I managed to keep contact with him through my teens and early 20’s, managing to visit him and his wife at least once a week when I was in town, sometimes more often – each time having to gird myself and prepare myself to keep cool under what was promised to be a verbal beating for no reason other than that I didn’t take his word as gospel.
But by my mid-20’s I had begun to have enough of it.
By this time, I had grown quite tired of being informed that I was immoral because I was not Christian (despite the fact that I led a far more moral life than he), that my opinions didn’t matter because I didn’t have the “decency” and “moral fortitude” to be a party-line Republican, that my education was clearly inferior and nothing but brainwashing because I didn’t accept Rush Limbaugh as a reliable source of information (no joke, I have actually been told this). In short, I had grown tired of being a punching bag for someone who seemed to simply want to have a victim to smack around.
…and as you can see, this behavior of his colored my view more than it should. I say all of this, and all of it is true, and yet he still would demonstrate that he could be a gracious host, a generous person, and a concerned family member. By this time, his outbursts of wrath had begun to spark a gnawing worm of anger inside of me, and that worm began to color my every interaction with him.
And this is where the real problem with wrath comes in. It doesn’t remain one-sided. The subject will eventually become resentful, and then begin reflecting the initial hostility back at its origin. And that is exactly what happened here.
Beginning when I was around 22 or 23, I began to be less civil when he would pick fights with me. I was more likely to shout back and talk over him, just as he did to me and everyone else. Rather than walking away feeling frustrated, I walked away feeling righteous indignation followed by a sense of rage. Eventually, it was difficult for me to think of him without becoming angry. I still tried to maintain a relationship, and still managed to start every visit in a civil manner, though he would invariably pick a topic where he knew we disagreed and began hammering at me until I bit back. All the while, my visits were becoming less and less frequent.
On Fathers Day, 2005* I paid my last visit to his home. At this point, I had not seen him in nearly a year. I had gotten word that his wife, to whom I had been close when I was a kid, had been diagnosed with Alzheimers. I decided that I needed to go and visit, and that I should make a point of trying to rebuild our relationship – he was going to need everyone he could get on his side.
The visit started pleasantly enough, and he asked me about where my career was headed. I told him that I was headed into environmental consulting, and explained a bit about the laws that I would be working with, and how the laws had been made intentionally flexible to allow them to be adapted broadly to a wide variety of circumstances.
He then brought up a local issue, where a developer had stopped working on a project. Generally it had been blamed on environmental concerns (or “fucking environmental extremists” according to this relative), but the situation was, in fact, considerably more complicated and the environmental issues were only a small part of the cause. I tried to explain this, and he would have none of it, and began his usual thing – screaming about my alleged immorality, telling me that I was a traitor to my country for being part of “the environmental movement that is trying to destroy America”, and insisting that I had said that environmental law “doesn’t hold water (in fact, completely different from what I had said). I began by calmly asking him to tone down, and trying to say that he had (I think knowingly) misquoted what I had said. His response – to tell me to shut up, that I had no right to ask him to calm down, and that I was a traitorous liberal who didn’t have a right to speak.
I had had it. I began screaming right back at him, letting thirty years of pent up rage come out in my words and tone. I told him that he was a hypocrite, that he knew that he was wrong and that was why he was afraid of letting me get a word in, and that I wasn’t going to let him push me around.
At this point, over the objections of his wife, he pointed at the door and told me to get out. I yelled “fine, I’m gone” and headed out the door. His last words as the door closed behind me were “your kind makes me sick!”
I was livid, and took much longer to drive back home to Santa Barbara (where I was living at the time) because I kept having to stop along the road, being so enraged that I would have been a menace to other drivers if I didn’t stop to cool down.
And that was it. The relationship, long eroding, now completely destroyed. I saw him once at his wife’s funeral, where I tried to mend fences (and he was quite calm and kind, to his credit), and once afterwards, where he was much calmer even when discussing potentially inflammatory topics. But I can’t bring myself to try again. I know I should, I know I should forgive him, and I know I should let the past go. But, for some reason, I can’t. I feel like I had taken his misplaced wrath for three decades, and I am now somewhat ashamed of myself for allowing that to happen, for not having stood up to him more forcefully sooner. I’m also disappointed with myself for allowing him to provoke me – yet it was not allowing myself to be provoked that led to me feeling like I’d allowed myself to be used as a doormat.
I know I should put the past behind me and forgive him, but I can’t, and I don’t know why. Even writing this essay has been difficult – I have often had to get up and do something else to prevent myself from becoming enraged. Nothing else does this to me, nothing else gets me so irrationally angry and bitter. I find it difficult to think of his good qualities, they seem like a dream that you can’t quite recall after waking up, this anger at him for his abusive behavior is too over-powering, when it really shouldn’t be.
I feel like I could let the whole thing go if only he would apologize, if only he’d admit that he has done wrong and show a willingness to make amends. He won’t, that sort of introspection is beyond him. When I have tried to talk to him since that Fathers Day, I have managed to remain pleasant
And so there it is – I spent several decades as the target of someone else’s wrath, and now I have a storehouse of my own that I cannot let go of, cannot direct at anyone else, and yet must express, and that poisons me to this day.
*No, this relative is not my father. I was at visiting my father in Modesto, and that’s why I was in town to drop in on this relative.
****************
To my mind, wrath has always had a connotation of either revenge or justice. Indeed, it is not uncommon to hear about the “Wrath of God”, usually in reference to someone paying for some horrible wickedness. As appealing as the notion of an emotion of justice is, it isn’t actually true.
Wrath is really just a typical irrational emotion, and like most emotions it is prone to misfiring. As people, we direct wrath often not at those deserving of it, but at whoever happens to be standing there, whoever we disagree with - especially if we suspect that they may be right, or whoever we decide we don’t like at that moment regardless of the reason. We have all done it, even if only to a small degree, and we have all hurt someone who didn’t deserve to be hurt as a result.
I have an older relative on my mother’s side, who he is exactly isn’t important but suffice to say that most people would expect that he and I would have a close relationship. We don’t, and the reason is a mutual vindictive anger – in other words, wrath.
This relative and I differ on a few points. First off, while he claims to be Christian, the reality is that he is a follower of the creed “there is but one god, and his name is Reagan, and Limbaugh is his prophet.” Second, he has a very macho outlook – there are MANLY things (sports, joining the military, sex with any available woman, voting Republican) and then there are those things not worth of a truly manly man (everything that he doesn’t personally like or do). Third, he seems to believe that anyone who disagrees with him is a threat, so it’s not enough for him to disagree with you, he has to try to crush you so that you will bow to his alleged wisdom.
But, Dr. Jekyll-like, he has another side as well. He has shown himself to be concerned about maintaining family ties, planning gatherings and trips, often generously putting forth money from his own pocket in order to ensure that others may participate. He has shown a concern about the community around him, and worked for some time professionally to try to improve things.
As a kid, I was often the target of both sides.
He did take an interest in me, and often seemed to seek me out for company. However, as I was a bright but sensitive kid, lousy at sports, and with broad intellectual interests that didn’t intersect with his rather narrower ones, I was also often the target of absurd amounts of ridicule and verbal abuse. One of my sisters recalls him going out of his way at times to pick on or belittle me – though I don’t personally recall if I received this treatment more than my sisters did.
As I became a teenager, and began to form my own opinions on a variety of issues, the abuse really picked up. I took an interest in science, which meant that I disagreed with him on almost every subject contained within science. I read books on philosophy, and began to question the rigid moral code that he claimed (but didn’t tend to follow). I read a lot of history (still do), and as such didn’t agree with him on many of his cherished myths (really, you should have seen him explode when I mentioned that Columbus was, in fact, not the first person to think that the world was round). Oddly, I was usually able to keep calm and collected when talking to him – figuring that the best way to counter his bursts of, frankly rather bizarre, anger was to keep calm and try to talk like two rational people.
A typical conversation from this time period went something like this:
Him: Evolution? You believe that shit? You believe that people came from monkeys? God, you are stupid!
Me: Evolution is about genetic change over time, not “people coming from monkeys” – and if you really look into it, it makes a lot of sense.
Him: Oh, I see, you think you’re so fucking smart!
Me: Look, genes replicate at such a high rate that errors in replication are inevitable. It’s also inevitable that sometimes these errors will actually have beneficial…
Him: That’s stupid, and you’re an idiot and a loony if you believe that crap!
Me: Look, you don’t know what it’s even about, if you’d let me just say something…
Him: Why should I listen to you? You’re just believing everything that you’ve been spoon-fed, and not thinking about any of it. You idiot!
No, I’m no exaggerating, that’s really the way he talks to, or rather shouts at, people. The very definition of wrath – a vindictive anger directed at someone who is to be punished – even if their only crime is disagreeing on a subject of which the dispenser of wrath has no real knowledge.
As you can imagine, being steam-rolled over like that gets old, as does having someone insist that you’re the one accepting whatever you’re spoon-fed when, in fact, you’re the only one who’s actually basing their opinions on evidence. However, I managed to keep contact with him through my teens and early 20’s, managing to visit him and his wife at least once a week when I was in town, sometimes more often – each time having to gird myself and prepare myself to keep cool under what was promised to be a verbal beating for no reason other than that I didn’t take his word as gospel.
But by my mid-20’s I had begun to have enough of it.
By this time, I had grown quite tired of being informed that I was immoral because I was not Christian (despite the fact that I led a far more moral life than he), that my opinions didn’t matter because I didn’t have the “decency” and “moral fortitude” to be a party-line Republican, that my education was clearly inferior and nothing but brainwashing because I didn’t accept Rush Limbaugh as a reliable source of information (no joke, I have actually been told this). In short, I had grown tired of being a punching bag for someone who seemed to simply want to have a victim to smack around.
…and as you can see, this behavior of his colored my view more than it should. I say all of this, and all of it is true, and yet he still would demonstrate that he could be a gracious host, a generous person, and a concerned family member. By this time, his outbursts of wrath had begun to spark a gnawing worm of anger inside of me, and that worm began to color my every interaction with him.
And this is where the real problem with wrath comes in. It doesn’t remain one-sided. The subject will eventually become resentful, and then begin reflecting the initial hostility back at its origin. And that is exactly what happened here.
Beginning when I was around 22 or 23, I began to be less civil when he would pick fights with me. I was more likely to shout back and talk over him, just as he did to me and everyone else. Rather than walking away feeling frustrated, I walked away feeling righteous indignation followed by a sense of rage. Eventually, it was difficult for me to think of him without becoming angry. I still tried to maintain a relationship, and still managed to start every visit in a civil manner, though he would invariably pick a topic where he knew we disagreed and began hammering at me until I bit back. All the while, my visits were becoming less and less frequent.
On Fathers Day, 2005* I paid my last visit to his home. At this point, I had not seen him in nearly a year. I had gotten word that his wife, to whom I had been close when I was a kid, had been diagnosed with Alzheimers. I decided that I needed to go and visit, and that I should make a point of trying to rebuild our relationship – he was going to need everyone he could get on his side.
The visit started pleasantly enough, and he asked me about where my career was headed. I told him that I was headed into environmental consulting, and explained a bit about the laws that I would be working with, and how the laws had been made intentionally flexible to allow them to be adapted broadly to a wide variety of circumstances.
He then brought up a local issue, where a developer had stopped working on a project. Generally it had been blamed on environmental concerns (or “fucking environmental extremists” according to this relative), but the situation was, in fact, considerably more complicated and the environmental issues were only a small part of the cause. I tried to explain this, and he would have none of it, and began his usual thing – screaming about my alleged immorality, telling me that I was a traitor to my country for being part of “the environmental movement that is trying to destroy America”, and insisting that I had said that environmental law “doesn’t hold water (in fact, completely different from what I had said). I began by calmly asking him to tone down, and trying to say that he had (I think knowingly) misquoted what I had said. His response – to tell me to shut up, that I had no right to ask him to calm down, and that I was a traitorous liberal who didn’t have a right to speak.
I had had it. I began screaming right back at him, letting thirty years of pent up rage come out in my words and tone. I told him that he was a hypocrite, that he knew that he was wrong and that was why he was afraid of letting me get a word in, and that I wasn’t going to let him push me around.
At this point, over the objections of his wife, he pointed at the door and told me to get out. I yelled “fine, I’m gone” and headed out the door. His last words as the door closed behind me were “your kind makes me sick!”
I was livid, and took much longer to drive back home to Santa Barbara (where I was living at the time) because I kept having to stop along the road, being so enraged that I would have been a menace to other drivers if I didn’t stop to cool down.
And that was it. The relationship, long eroding, now completely destroyed. I saw him once at his wife’s funeral, where I tried to mend fences (and he was quite calm and kind, to his credit), and once afterwards, where he was much calmer even when discussing potentially inflammatory topics. But I can’t bring myself to try again. I know I should, I know I should forgive him, and I know I should let the past go. But, for some reason, I can’t. I feel like I had taken his misplaced wrath for three decades, and I am now somewhat ashamed of myself for allowing that to happen, for not having stood up to him more forcefully sooner. I’m also disappointed with myself for allowing him to provoke me – yet it was not allowing myself to be provoked that led to me feeling like I’d allowed myself to be used as a doormat.
I know I should put the past behind me and forgive him, but I can’t, and I don’t know why. Even writing this essay has been difficult – I have often had to get up and do something else to prevent myself from becoming enraged. Nothing else does this to me, nothing else gets me so irrationally angry and bitter. I find it difficult to think of his good qualities, they seem like a dream that you can’t quite recall after waking up, this anger at him for his abusive behavior is too over-powering, when it really shouldn’t be.
I feel like I could let the whole thing go if only he would apologize, if only he’d admit that he has done wrong and show a willingness to make amends. He won’t, that sort of introspection is beyond him. When I have tried to talk to him since that Fathers Day, I have managed to remain pleasant
And so there it is – I spent several decades as the target of someone else’s wrath, and now I have a storehouse of my own that I cannot let go of, cannot direct at anyone else, and yet must express, and that poisons me to this day.
*No, this relative is not my father. I was at visiting my father in Modesto, and that’s why I was in town to drop in on this relative.
Friday, February 27, 2009
High School Musical - Now With 75% More Sex and Homoeroticism
Kay has decided to ask other bloggers to write blogs based around the Seven Deadly Sins – one sin per week, and this week, it’s Lust. I had thought that I would write something about those college years in which it seemed that lust was one of the few comforts open to my pocket book.
But then last night happened.
And that doesn’t mean what you are probably thinking it means.
Kay’s sister is active in her high school’s drama program, and the school district has an annual “dramafest” program in which each high school in the district contributes students and performances to the evening’s entertainment. Kay was insistent that I attend, so off to Campbell I went.
Initially, this seemed to be the usual high school drama class fare – a couple of musical numbers opened up the show, both from the musical Side Show, performed better than one might expect, but nonetheless reinforcing to me the fact that we live in a sick culture that seems to think that everything, and I mean everything, MUST be turned into a Broadway-style musical, no matter the cost to innocent people such as the audience (the Onion not long back ran a story concerning musicals being made based on Alka Seltzer and Ajax Cleanser that, I am frightened to say, sounded eerily plausible).
After the musical numbers, we were treated to a scene in which a woman has an argument with her sexual fantasy – a bespectacled but good-natured guy who likes to spoon, or would if he existed, which he doesn’t, seeing as how he is a fantasy and all – and proceeds to go to the psychiatrist, to whom she describes her masturbation habits (though not graphically), and from whom she receives a prescription. Arriving home and taking the medication, the woman causes her sexual fantasy to vanish, only to be replaced by a new one – a charming Spanish rake. All in all, the scene was well-written, generally well performed, and extremely funny. It also made all of the adults in the audience squirm – many of them were parents to the kids involved in the show, and others were siblings or (like myself) attached to either the parents or siblings, so the rather surprisingly frank admission of lust and sex in this scene transcended the awkwardness that most of us would feel in seeing teenagers act out such a literally adult scene (the people in it were pretty clearly written to be older than 18, probably much older, so it wasn’t just the sex that made it adult) and began to probe the borders of that particular territory of discomfort known to anyone who has had to hear a sibling describe their first blowjob.
Well, this was odd and awkward, but, we figured, it couldn’t possibly continue in this vein. After all, this skit might have slipped through the cracks, but it was over early on, and now we were in much safer, family-friendly territory.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
The next skit, also well performed and extremely funny, was a two-man condensed performance of Romeo and Juliet (originally written by the Reduced Shakespeare Company) in which the fellow who took on the role of Romeo made a point of wildly gesticulating towards his crotch whenever possible, and the fact that all roles were played by the two men led to some rather strange but very funny dueling homoerotic and homophobic sequences.
This was followed by a sequence in which a fellow is struggling with the question of whether or not to jump into bed with a woman who’s boyfriend is out of the country (in which we saw one teenage girl shout “Hi, I have ovaries, come on in!” while gesturing towards her pelvis), a lesbian love song (from The Color Purple – again, I want to go to New York and forcibly demonstrate to some Broadway producers that not everything has to be a musical), and a young man holding a teddy bear while singing a song, admittedly veiled but nonetheless obvious, about how happy he is that someone has decided to join him “in his bed”.
When a scene from The Martian Chronicles came on stage, we were so beaten down with sexual subject matter that we began to look for a lesbian subtext where none probably existed. By the time that a scene from Alice in Wonderland was performed, we were wondering why Alice wasn’t wearing a dominatrix outfit, and really, why exactly was she hanging out with a rabbit rather than some other, less amorous animal anyway?
Underage kids exploring sex…it’s as if we had entered one of Warren Jeff’s deepest fantasies.
In truth, none of this should have surprised us. Teenagers are attempting to do two things simultaneously: figure out what it is to be an adult, and figure out what their growing interest in sex means. As adults, we learn that these are, of course, part and parcel of the same thing, and we (usually) learn to navigate both somewhat successfully. But I remember being a teenager, and trying to be mature, while realizing that one of the things that seemed the most mature – sex – had the tendency to reduce us to blithering fools. What we saw on stage was, in many ways, a reflection of that exploration, the sort of thing that we all have to do at some point. It just happened to be rather amazingly public in this case.
In short, the high school dramafest was an explosion of teenage lust on stage. While many people, including myself, felt somewhat shocked or even scandalized by this, it was probably quite harmless. We saw nothing on stage that isn’t already going through the heads and social interactions of these kids. In truth, the scandal isn’t that teenagers experience lust, but that adults, myself included, are uncomfortable hearing about it, and this probably prevents us from being as helpful as we could in keeping the kids safe and responsible – if we can’t talk about it, they can’t listen and learn from our mistakes.
Although it doesn’t quite fit in to the theme of lust, I do have to mention one last thing. The final item on the program was called “Twin Towers Bring Me Home: A Musical Tribute to 9/11.” Yep, it’s pretty much what you think if you are considering that this was a Bay Area school district with a strong arts program doing a musical number based on a terrorist attack. A group of students stood silhouetted by the lit backdrop and posed in various threatening ways (including as if they were pointing rifles at each other) while another student played his guitar and sang a song that we couldn’t quite make out (Kay thought it sounded like a Green Day song, I thought it sounded like it belonged in a commercial for a hair loss prevention product), interrupted by two young women singing songs from un-related musicals, and a young man who kept yelling about having gone through chemotherapy. In other words, it was a weird, incomprehensible mess. I suppose some folks in the audience were moved, most were probably offended, but I had a hard time keeping from bursting into laughter.
But then last night happened.
And that doesn’t mean what you are probably thinking it means.
Kay’s sister is active in her high school’s drama program, and the school district has an annual “dramafest” program in which each high school in the district contributes students and performances to the evening’s entertainment. Kay was insistent that I attend, so off to Campbell I went.
Initially, this seemed to be the usual high school drama class fare – a couple of musical numbers opened up the show, both from the musical Side Show, performed better than one might expect, but nonetheless reinforcing to me the fact that we live in a sick culture that seems to think that everything, and I mean everything, MUST be turned into a Broadway-style musical, no matter the cost to innocent people such as the audience (the Onion not long back ran a story concerning musicals being made based on Alka Seltzer and Ajax Cleanser that, I am frightened to say, sounded eerily plausible).
After the musical numbers, we were treated to a scene in which a woman has an argument with her sexual fantasy – a bespectacled but good-natured guy who likes to spoon, or would if he existed, which he doesn’t, seeing as how he is a fantasy and all – and proceeds to go to the psychiatrist, to whom she describes her masturbation habits (though not graphically), and from whom she receives a prescription. Arriving home and taking the medication, the woman causes her sexual fantasy to vanish, only to be replaced by a new one – a charming Spanish rake. All in all, the scene was well-written, generally well performed, and extremely funny. It also made all of the adults in the audience squirm – many of them were parents to the kids involved in the show, and others were siblings or (like myself) attached to either the parents or siblings, so the rather surprisingly frank admission of lust and sex in this scene transcended the awkwardness that most of us would feel in seeing teenagers act out such a literally adult scene (the people in it were pretty clearly written to be older than 18, probably much older, so it wasn’t just the sex that made it adult) and began to probe the borders of that particular territory of discomfort known to anyone who has had to hear a sibling describe their first blowjob.
Well, this was odd and awkward, but, we figured, it couldn’t possibly continue in this vein. After all, this skit might have slipped through the cracks, but it was over early on, and now we were in much safer, family-friendly territory.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
The next skit, also well performed and extremely funny, was a two-man condensed performance of Romeo and Juliet (originally written by the Reduced Shakespeare Company) in which the fellow who took on the role of Romeo made a point of wildly gesticulating towards his crotch whenever possible, and the fact that all roles were played by the two men led to some rather strange but very funny dueling homoerotic and homophobic sequences.
This was followed by a sequence in which a fellow is struggling with the question of whether or not to jump into bed with a woman who’s boyfriend is out of the country (in which we saw one teenage girl shout “Hi, I have ovaries, come on in!” while gesturing towards her pelvis), a lesbian love song (from The Color Purple – again, I want to go to New York and forcibly demonstrate to some Broadway producers that not everything has to be a musical), and a young man holding a teddy bear while singing a song, admittedly veiled but nonetheless obvious, about how happy he is that someone has decided to join him “in his bed”.
When a scene from The Martian Chronicles came on stage, we were so beaten down with sexual subject matter that we began to look for a lesbian subtext where none probably existed. By the time that a scene from Alice in Wonderland was performed, we were wondering why Alice wasn’t wearing a dominatrix outfit, and really, why exactly was she hanging out with a rabbit rather than some other, less amorous animal anyway?
Underage kids exploring sex…it’s as if we had entered one of Warren Jeff’s deepest fantasies.
In truth, none of this should have surprised us. Teenagers are attempting to do two things simultaneously: figure out what it is to be an adult, and figure out what their growing interest in sex means. As adults, we learn that these are, of course, part and parcel of the same thing, and we (usually) learn to navigate both somewhat successfully. But I remember being a teenager, and trying to be mature, while realizing that one of the things that seemed the most mature – sex – had the tendency to reduce us to blithering fools. What we saw on stage was, in many ways, a reflection of that exploration, the sort of thing that we all have to do at some point. It just happened to be rather amazingly public in this case.
In short, the high school dramafest was an explosion of teenage lust on stage. While many people, including myself, felt somewhat shocked or even scandalized by this, it was probably quite harmless. We saw nothing on stage that isn’t already going through the heads and social interactions of these kids. In truth, the scandal isn’t that teenagers experience lust, but that adults, myself included, are uncomfortable hearing about it, and this probably prevents us from being as helpful as we could in keeping the kids safe and responsible – if we can’t talk about it, they can’t listen and learn from our mistakes.
Although it doesn’t quite fit in to the theme of lust, I do have to mention one last thing. The final item on the program was called “Twin Towers Bring Me Home: A Musical Tribute to 9/11.” Yep, it’s pretty much what you think if you are considering that this was a Bay Area school district with a strong arts program doing a musical number based on a terrorist attack. A group of students stood silhouetted by the lit backdrop and posed in various threatening ways (including as if they were pointing rifles at each other) while another student played his guitar and sang a song that we couldn’t quite make out (Kay thought it sounded like a Green Day song, I thought it sounded like it belonged in a commercial for a hair loss prevention product), interrupted by two young women singing songs from un-related musicals, and a young man who kept yelling about having gone through chemotherapy. In other words, it was a weird, incomprehensible mess. I suppose some folks in the audience were moved, most were probably offended, but I had a hard time keeping from bursting into laughter.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Japan Bound
This time tommorrow, I will be suffering insomnia while sitting on a Tokyo-bound airplane next to Kay, and I will not be back until the afternoon of January 12th. So, I'll not be updating the blod until then.
I'm happy to note that while we are arriving too early in the year to see Godzilla, we wil arrive in the prime of Mothra season, and there may even be a touch of Rodan in the skies.
As noted, I will return in just over a week. In the meantime, I hope y'all have a good New Years, and that life is groovy to ya'.
I'm happy to note that while we are arriving too early in the year to see Godzilla, we wil arrive in the prime of Mothra season, and there may even be a touch of Rodan in the skies.
As noted, I will return in just over a week. In the meantime, I hope y'all have a good New Years, and that life is groovy to ya'.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
S.C.A. - Part II
This is Part 2. For Part 1, go here, or you can go to Part 3
Once I had moved to Lompoc, I was introduced to the next S.C.A.: The Society for Creative Anachronism.
The Society for Creative Anachronism, for those who are unaware, is an organization dedicated to pseudo-historical recreation – as members often say, they celebrate “the Medieval Period as it should have been, not as it was.” Members dress in home-made armor, beat the crap out of each other with rattan sticks weighted to feel like swords, assume the titles of nobility, and don’t tend to invite plague rats to the festivities – historical accuracy be damned in the case of the bubonic sickness. I believe that the drudgery and duties of serfdom are contracted out to Halliburton.
Many of my friends have been members of this group, and one of my closest friends had been inviting me to events for years – despite the usual response of “umm, I’m really not interested, please stop bringing it up.” Living in a more isolated location, I felt lonely and a bit depressed, in all, the perfect conditions for cult recruitment. I will leave it to you, the reader, to decide whether or not I was lucky to be approached by the historical violence crowd instead.
Seeing the need to increase my social interaction, I finally agreed to attend an event. I had been part of the renaissance fair scene in my earlier, geekier life (yes, I was once even geekier than I am now – try not to pass out at that thought), and I had been assured that the Society for Creative Anachronism was rather different from the rather cliquish and often petty ren fair crowd, and thus might be more enjoyable for me.
At first, I did have fun. I had gotten involved with a group that fenced. That is, they fought with small swords (thus resulting in lighter armor and less concussions than the rattan stick folks), they didn’t sell stolen car radios…that I am aware of. It was fun for a while, a good way to get some exercise, social interaction, and a healthy place to blow of the stress and aggressions that came with a grad student’s life. And, at first, most of the people I associated with at the regular meetings were fun, easy-going folks. This began to change, however, as the months wore on.
The Society for Creative Anachronism holds regular events, some of them known as “wars” at which members meet, engage in mock-combat, and do various courtly things, all without any lepers present. I attended a few of these events. When they were close to home, this was fine, as I could return home at the end of the day and get some rest. When they were away from home, they required camping – an activity that I loathe under normal conditions, and dislike even further when I am surrounded by loud party-goers who prevent me from getting any rest. As a result, after my first event away from my home area, I only attended those within driving distance of my apartment. This resulted in getting harassed by many of the other folks in the group, including having a long-time friend repeatedly inform me that I was “lazy” for not attending such events, and “proselytizing” when I responded to questions as to why I was not attending them (more on why this was rather ironic below).
In addition, the cliquishness and often pettiness of SCA folks was different from the Renaissance Fair people in one basic way – it was even more pronounced and much, much worse. I later asked my friend what they had meant when they told me that the SCA was different from the Ren Fair people (and they always said this in response to my complaints about the social behavior), and she said that she had meant simply that the SCA people never left costume – how this in any way addressed the concerns that it was always stated in response to is beyond me.
Then three things happened in quick succession that pretty much killed any and all interest that I ever had in this group. The first was that I didn’t attend an event because I was attending a professional conference that was scheduled for the same weekend of the event. I was harassed by several members for my decision to attend the conference instead of the SCA event. The second was that I had a party at my apartment to which I invited a few members of the group, two of whom were extremely adamant about getting other guests to come and attend some SCA events despite the guest’s stated disinterest (creating problems that I had to spend a lot of time defusing after the fact, and that I still get teased about to this day). The third was that many members (a minority, to be certain, but a rather large minority) began to routinely pester me about the fact that I had not invested as much time and effort into the organization as they saw fit – I was treating it as a hobby and not a lifestyle and they found this distressing.
As this continued on, I found that while everyone agreed that there were obnoxious zealots in their midst, the most zealous routinely failed to see their own obnoxious behavior, though they were aware of that of others (when I called one proselytizing SCAer on their rather rude behavior, they stated that they were respectful of others and didn’t try to push people who weren’t interested, unlike “some other” SCA people – a claim contradicted by the regular behavior of this individual).
So, put simply, by not making this hobby into a lifestyle, I had managed to upset a sizeable minority who made interaction with the group rather distasteful. In addition, if these folks saw me around and about while I was with my professional colleagues, they tried to turn the situation into a recruitment opportunity, thus embarrassing me and annoying my colleagues.
And then there is the most common form of advancing in the organization: fighting. For all of the talk about the importance of studying the arts, crafts, and history of the Middle Ages, the group was really organized around the mock combat. In and of itself, this is fine – but if you are going to run a sports organization, just admit that this is what you are doing. Certainly, one could gain rank by other means, and some people did, but what I saw was that most people who came to any level of reputation did so through the fighting. It was rather like being back in high school, and seeing the academically-oriented clubs take a backseat to the football team.
So, I walked away. To be fair, those people who were friends of mine before I got involved are still friends (and are, thankfully, less likely to try to recruit me now), and a few of the folks I met while involved with this SCA are still friends. Nonetheless, the behavior of something in the neighborhood of 35%-40% of the members I came into contact with turned me off for life. And I have spoken with folks who have encountered the SCA in other cities and states, and found that my experience is fairly common.
Coming soon - Part III, in which I become aligned with the people who invite Stephen Colbert to orgies.
Once I had moved to Lompoc, I was introduced to the next S.C.A.: The Society for Creative Anachronism.
The Society for Creative Anachronism, for those who are unaware, is an organization dedicated to pseudo-historical recreation – as members often say, they celebrate “the Medieval Period as it should have been, not as it was.” Members dress in home-made armor, beat the crap out of each other with rattan sticks weighted to feel like swords, assume the titles of nobility, and don’t tend to invite plague rats to the festivities – historical accuracy be damned in the case of the bubonic sickness. I believe that the drudgery and duties of serfdom are contracted out to Halliburton.
Many of my friends have been members of this group, and one of my closest friends had been inviting me to events for years – despite the usual response of “umm, I’m really not interested, please stop bringing it up.” Living in a more isolated location, I felt lonely and a bit depressed, in all, the perfect conditions for cult recruitment. I will leave it to you, the reader, to decide whether or not I was lucky to be approached by the historical violence crowd instead.
Seeing the need to increase my social interaction, I finally agreed to attend an event. I had been part of the renaissance fair scene in my earlier, geekier life (yes, I was once even geekier than I am now – try not to pass out at that thought), and I had been assured that the Society for Creative Anachronism was rather different from the rather cliquish and often petty ren fair crowd, and thus might be more enjoyable for me.
At first, I did have fun. I had gotten involved with a group that fenced. That is, they fought with small swords (thus resulting in lighter armor and less concussions than the rattan stick folks), they didn’t sell stolen car radios…that I am aware of. It was fun for a while, a good way to get some exercise, social interaction, and a healthy place to blow of the stress and aggressions that came with a grad student’s life. And, at first, most of the people I associated with at the regular meetings were fun, easy-going folks. This began to change, however, as the months wore on.
The Society for Creative Anachronism holds regular events, some of them known as “wars” at which members meet, engage in mock-combat, and do various courtly things, all without any lepers present. I attended a few of these events. When they were close to home, this was fine, as I could return home at the end of the day and get some rest. When they were away from home, they required camping – an activity that I loathe under normal conditions, and dislike even further when I am surrounded by loud party-goers who prevent me from getting any rest. As a result, after my first event away from my home area, I only attended those within driving distance of my apartment. This resulted in getting harassed by many of the other folks in the group, including having a long-time friend repeatedly inform me that I was “lazy” for not attending such events, and “proselytizing” when I responded to questions as to why I was not attending them (more on why this was rather ironic below).
In addition, the cliquishness and often pettiness of SCA folks was different from the Renaissance Fair people in one basic way – it was even more pronounced and much, much worse. I later asked my friend what they had meant when they told me that the SCA was different from the Ren Fair people (and they always said this in response to my complaints about the social behavior), and she said that she had meant simply that the SCA people never left costume – how this in any way addressed the concerns that it was always stated in response to is beyond me.
Then three things happened in quick succession that pretty much killed any and all interest that I ever had in this group. The first was that I didn’t attend an event because I was attending a professional conference that was scheduled for the same weekend of the event. I was harassed by several members for my decision to attend the conference instead of the SCA event. The second was that I had a party at my apartment to which I invited a few members of the group, two of whom were extremely adamant about getting other guests to come and attend some SCA events despite the guest’s stated disinterest (creating problems that I had to spend a lot of time defusing after the fact, and that I still get teased about to this day). The third was that many members (a minority, to be certain, but a rather large minority) began to routinely pester me about the fact that I had not invested as much time and effort into the organization as they saw fit – I was treating it as a hobby and not a lifestyle and they found this distressing.
As this continued on, I found that while everyone agreed that there were obnoxious zealots in their midst, the most zealous routinely failed to see their own obnoxious behavior, though they were aware of that of others (when I called one proselytizing SCAer on their rather rude behavior, they stated that they were respectful of others and didn’t try to push people who weren’t interested, unlike “some other” SCA people – a claim contradicted by the regular behavior of this individual).
So, put simply, by not making this hobby into a lifestyle, I had managed to upset a sizeable minority who made interaction with the group rather distasteful. In addition, if these folks saw me around and about while I was with my professional colleagues, they tried to turn the situation into a recruitment opportunity, thus embarrassing me and annoying my colleagues.
And then there is the most common form of advancing in the organization: fighting. For all of the talk about the importance of studying the arts, crafts, and history of the Middle Ages, the group was really organized around the mock combat. In and of itself, this is fine – but if you are going to run a sports organization, just admit that this is what you are doing. Certainly, one could gain rank by other means, and some people did, but what I saw was that most people who came to any level of reputation did so through the fighting. It was rather like being back in high school, and seeing the academically-oriented clubs take a backseat to the football team.
So, I walked away. To be fair, those people who were friends of mine before I got involved are still friends (and are, thankfully, less likely to try to recruit me now), and a few of the folks I met while involved with this SCA are still friends. Nonetheless, the behavior of something in the neighborhood of 35%-40% of the members I came into contact with turned me off for life. And I have spoken with folks who have encountered the SCA in other cities and states, and found that my experience is fairly common.
Coming soon - Part III, in which I become aligned with the people who invite Stephen Colbert to orgies.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Photos Galore
Because I have an ego the size of the Monterey Bay and I like tooting my own horn (really, why else would I be keeping this blog), I thought I'd show the fruits of one of my hobbies (no, not the tooting of my horn - I keep those fruits private). I usually have a camera in my car, and while I am in no way a professional quality photographer (hell, I don't even have a particularly good camera), I have managed to get some shots that I am proud of. I don't take too many pictures of people, because I'm not very good at it, but I like the ones in this post. Such as:
This one of Scott, Kirin, and Salome listening to music at a coffee shop. I like the rather screwed-up symmetry of the image, three people, and the photo is centered on one of them, which should create good symmetry, but because Salome is leaning forward, it doesn't quite work.
Or how about this one - Scott's explaining something, and Stacy is looking thoroughly unimpressed...
Again, a slightly screwed-up symmetry, this one due to the fact that Scott is partially out of the frame and I'm taking the picture from an odd angle relative to them, and I kind of like that.
I have no idea who this person is, but when I saw her leaning against the wall of the coffee shop, I figured it would make a good photo:
In this case, I like the fact that she is clearly unaware that her picture is being taken (actually, that's the case for all of these photos), and she clearly has other things on her mind. Add to that the fact that the photos is taken through a window, and I am looking over someone's shoulder (note the newspaper in the corner of the screen), and I think it makes for an interesting image.
Then there's vanishing points, which I make alot of use of when I am not photographing people, but are difficult to capture with people. However, this photo of Jeff and Scott watching miniature car races at the Santa Cruz County Fair came off nicely.
And finally, an image of Scott at a supposedly haunted hotel in Brookdale, off of Highway 9.
And that's all for now...though I am trying to figure out why Scott is in so many of my pictures. Probably because he seems oblivious to his surroundings, and therefore doesn't notice or pose when I pull the camera out.
This one of Scott, Kirin, and Salome listening to music at a coffee shop. I like the rather screwed-up symmetry of the image, three people, and the photo is centered on one of them, which should create good symmetry, but because Salome is leaning forward, it doesn't quite work.Or how about this one - Scott's explaining something, and Stacy is looking thoroughly unimpressed...
Again, a slightly screwed-up symmetry, this one due to the fact that Scott is partially out of the frame and I'm taking the picture from an odd angle relative to them, and I kind of like that.
I have no idea who this person is, but when I saw her leaning against the wall of the coffee shop, I figured it would make a good photo:
In this case, I like the fact that she is clearly unaware that her picture is being taken (actually, that's the case for all of these photos), and she clearly has other things on her mind. Add to that the fact that the photos is taken through a window, and I am looking over someone's shoulder (note the newspaper in the corner of the screen), and I think it makes for an interesting image.
Then there's vanishing points, which I make alot of use of when I am not photographing people, but are difficult to capture with people. However, this photo of Jeff and Scott watching miniature car races at the Santa Cruz County Fair came off nicely.
And finally, an image of Scott at a supposedly haunted hotel in Brookdale, off of Highway 9.
And that's all for now...though I am trying to figure out why Scott is in so many of my pictures. Probably because he seems oblivious to his surroundings, and therefore doesn't notice or pose when I pull the camera out.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Think Different
My youngest biological sister* got married a few weeks ago. After the wedding, I was talking with my mother and my sister’s husband’s grandmother about an event that had occurred in my brother-in-law’s family a few months earlier.
One of my brother-in-law’s cousins owns a farm, and he was driving his tractor from one field to another when he hit his daughter. She suffered significant brain damage, and the doctors who treated her warned that she may never fully regain her cognitive and motor functions. However, here we are, a few months later, and she has regained her ability to recognize people, her memory of people from before the accident seems to be unimpaired, and while she is paralyzed on one side of her body, she seems to be beginning to recover motor functions there as well.
Her recovery is pretty remarkable, but not unheard of. The reality is that we are only beginning to crack the inner workings of the human brain, and it’s alternating fragility and resilience is only beginning to be understood in any meaningful way. Stories such as this girl’s are amazing, but not miraculous.
Or so I think.
As the grandmother was winding down her description of the child’s injuries and recovery, I prepared to make a comment about how complex and amazing the human brain is, and how astounding it is that people can recover from even serious brain injuries – and, hey, the doctors probably had a bit of a hand in it to, so let’s give them some credit. Before I could do more than open my mouth, though, the grandmother began describing this sequence not as the amazing yet natural processes of a complex brain coupled with modern medicine, but as proof that God was watching over the girl and working miracles. My mother immediately jumped in and began affirming everything that the grandmother said.
Although the question formed in my mind, I did have the good sense to not ask “if God is watching over her, why did he let her get hit by the tractor in the first place?” Under the circumstances, such a question would have done no good, and would probably just have upset people whose nerves were already frayed by recent events. Still, even if it had been a time or place where such a question would not have come off as just plain callous, I’d likely have been given the usual non-answers such as “God working in mysterious ways” or “God has to allow bad to happen so that good can also happen.”
So, I sat there silently.
But, ever since then, as I have not been able to get this conversation out of my mind. People who don’t believe in particular things, be they gods, ghosts, leprechauns, or unicorns, are often accused of lacking a sense of wonder. This is bullshit, though. I have nothing but awe and a sense of wonder at the fact that we have evolved a brain that, under the correct conditions, is capable of healing from even catastrophic injuries. Likewise, I am struck by a sense of awe and wonder every time I think about the working of a cell or the presence of quasars, black holes, and novas. To crack that up to some paranormal entity, regardless of the nature of that entity, is not to revel in wonder and awe, it is to deny it by putting it into a black box and labeling it “unexplainable.”
I may reject the notion of miracles, but I do so accepting the reality of very real and very amazing things, such as a brain that can heal itself or a star that can explode, creating the raw materials for future stars and planets. Reality is truly amazing.
Some would say that awe and wonder are beside the point in this case, and that the notion that a god was looking out for the child gives the grandmother comfort. This certainly seems to be true, and it is for that reason that I kept my mouth shut. But, in order to maintain this belief, she must either not think too deeply about the belief or else accept a God that is ambivalent at best and capricious at worst – healing the child only after allowing her to be hit by the tractor (or if we are going with an omniscient and omnipotent deity that set everything into motion, making her be hit by the tractor). Regardless, it seems more comforting to accept the fact that we are amazing creatures lucky enough to live in an amazing universe, and capable of healing when circumstances are right (and with a little help of other members of our species) than to spend time contemplating a cosmic entity that is just as likely to aid us as to allow us to come to tremendous harm.
However, this is yet another circumstance in which it becomes clear that, really, I just don’t think the way that most other people I know think. And with this sort of introspection, you can bet that I am a blast at parties.
*I have three biological sisters and three adopted sisters, and since everyone always asks this, no I don’t have any brothers.
One of my brother-in-law’s cousins owns a farm, and he was driving his tractor from one field to another when he hit his daughter. She suffered significant brain damage, and the doctors who treated her warned that she may never fully regain her cognitive and motor functions. However, here we are, a few months later, and she has regained her ability to recognize people, her memory of people from before the accident seems to be unimpaired, and while she is paralyzed on one side of her body, she seems to be beginning to recover motor functions there as well.
Her recovery is pretty remarkable, but not unheard of. The reality is that we are only beginning to crack the inner workings of the human brain, and it’s alternating fragility and resilience is only beginning to be understood in any meaningful way. Stories such as this girl’s are amazing, but not miraculous.
Or so I think.
As the grandmother was winding down her description of the child’s injuries and recovery, I prepared to make a comment about how complex and amazing the human brain is, and how astounding it is that people can recover from even serious brain injuries – and, hey, the doctors probably had a bit of a hand in it to, so let’s give them some credit. Before I could do more than open my mouth, though, the grandmother began describing this sequence not as the amazing yet natural processes of a complex brain coupled with modern medicine, but as proof that God was watching over the girl and working miracles. My mother immediately jumped in and began affirming everything that the grandmother said.
Although the question formed in my mind, I did have the good sense to not ask “if God is watching over her, why did he let her get hit by the tractor in the first place?” Under the circumstances, such a question would have done no good, and would probably just have upset people whose nerves were already frayed by recent events. Still, even if it had been a time or place where such a question would not have come off as just plain callous, I’d likely have been given the usual non-answers such as “God working in mysterious ways” or “God has to allow bad to happen so that good can also happen.”
So, I sat there silently.
But, ever since then, as I have not been able to get this conversation out of my mind. People who don’t believe in particular things, be they gods, ghosts, leprechauns, or unicorns, are often accused of lacking a sense of wonder. This is bullshit, though. I have nothing but awe and a sense of wonder at the fact that we have evolved a brain that, under the correct conditions, is capable of healing from even catastrophic injuries. Likewise, I am struck by a sense of awe and wonder every time I think about the working of a cell or the presence of quasars, black holes, and novas. To crack that up to some paranormal entity, regardless of the nature of that entity, is not to revel in wonder and awe, it is to deny it by putting it into a black box and labeling it “unexplainable.”
I may reject the notion of miracles, but I do so accepting the reality of very real and very amazing things, such as a brain that can heal itself or a star that can explode, creating the raw materials for future stars and planets. Reality is truly amazing.
Some would say that awe and wonder are beside the point in this case, and that the notion that a god was looking out for the child gives the grandmother comfort. This certainly seems to be true, and it is for that reason that I kept my mouth shut. But, in order to maintain this belief, she must either not think too deeply about the belief or else accept a God that is ambivalent at best and capricious at worst – healing the child only after allowing her to be hit by the tractor (or if we are going with an omniscient and omnipotent deity that set everything into motion, making her be hit by the tractor). Regardless, it seems more comforting to accept the fact that we are amazing creatures lucky enough to live in an amazing universe, and capable of healing when circumstances are right (and with a little help of other members of our species) than to spend time contemplating a cosmic entity that is just as likely to aid us as to allow us to come to tremendous harm.
However, this is yet another circumstance in which it becomes clear that, really, I just don’t think the way that most other people I know think. And with this sort of introspection, you can bet that I am a blast at parties.
*I have three biological sisters and three adopted sisters, and since everyone always asks this, no I don’t have any brothers.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Boom, Like That...
Perhaps you've heard Mark Knopfler song "Boom, like that", if not, here it is:
Great song, right. Who'd have thought that a song about the founder of the McDonald's corporation would have inspired such a great song?
Kay apparently decided that I was equal to such a treatment - I think it's because of my floppy hat. So, here's her lyrics to the tune:
Go’in to San Benito
Ring-a-ding-ding
Surveying land,
That’s my thing, now
This land is hot, but the works gotta be done
Working all day out in the sun, now
Oh my name’s not Mac, its Matt with a T
Like the thing out front where you wipe your feet
Well its dog eat dog, cat eat cat
Matt style,
Boom like that
Now walking this track ain’t no fun
Got another two days ‘till I am done, now
And then I get it, wham
As clear as day
My pulse begins to hammer
And I hear a voice say
BLM has got it made
We do the work but who gets paid?
These techs out here have got the touch
They don’t bitch or complain too much
Wham, bam
Our clients can pay
And we’ll walk this land
Survey our way
We could start a team,
just the techs an’ me
Heck, every little thing
Oughtta be supreme
Oh my name’s not Mac, its Matt with a T
Like the stuff they partied with in ‘73
Well its dog eat dog, rat eat rat
Matt style,
Boom like that
You gentlemen
Ought to expand
But you’re gonna need a helping hand, now
So, gentlemen
Well what about me?
We’ll make a little bit of history, now
Oh my name’s not Mac, its Matt with a T
I ain’t got a brother, yeah its just me
Well its dog eat dog, lets trim the fat
Matt style,
Boom like that
Well we build it up
And I buy ‘em out
But man they make me
Pound it out
They have new techs and technology
But I have flair and masters degree,
They lobby now for the central coast
But we slick steal their clients
Like buttered toast
Well sometimes you gotta roll like an S.O.B.
To make a dream a reality
Competition?
Send ‘em east
Out to Nevada
And nice dry heat
California is the place to be
If you’re gonna study archeology
Cuz my name’s not Mac, its Matt with a T
I’ve said it three times, are you listen’ to me?
Well its dog eat dog, and a floppy hat
Matt style,
Boom like that
By the way - here's a photo of me in the floopy hat - looking particularly cocky and foolish:
.JPG)
Great song, right. Who'd have thought that a song about the founder of the McDonald's corporation would have inspired such a great song?
Kay apparently decided that I was equal to such a treatment - I think it's because of my floppy hat. So, here's her lyrics to the tune:
Go’in to San Benito
Ring-a-ding-ding
Surveying land,
That’s my thing, now
This land is hot, but the works gotta be done
Working all day out in the sun, now
Oh my name’s not Mac, its Matt with a T
Like the thing out front where you wipe your feet
Well its dog eat dog, cat eat cat
Matt style,
Boom like that
Now walking this track ain’t no fun
Got another two days ‘till I am done, now
And then I get it, wham
As clear as day
My pulse begins to hammer
And I hear a voice say
BLM has got it made
We do the work but who gets paid?
These techs out here have got the touch
They don’t bitch or complain too much
Wham, bam
Our clients can pay
And we’ll walk this land
Survey our way
We could start a team,
just the techs an’ me
Heck, every little thing
Oughtta be supreme
Oh my name’s not Mac, its Matt with a T
Like the stuff they partied with in ‘73
Well its dog eat dog, rat eat rat
Matt style,
Boom like that
You gentlemen
Ought to expand
But you’re gonna need a helping hand, now
So, gentlemen
Well what about me?
We’ll make a little bit of history, now
Oh my name’s not Mac, its Matt with a T
I ain’t got a brother, yeah its just me
Well its dog eat dog, lets trim the fat
Matt style,
Boom like that
Well we build it up
And I buy ‘em out
But man they make me
Pound it out
They have new techs and technology
But I have flair and masters degree,
They lobby now for the central coast
But we slick steal their clients
Like buttered toast
Well sometimes you gotta roll like an S.O.B.
To make a dream a reality
Competition?
Send ‘em east
Out to Nevada
And nice dry heat
California is the place to be
If you’re gonna study archeology
Cuz my name’s not Mac, its Matt with a T
I’ve said it three times, are you listen’ to me?
Well its dog eat dog, and a floppy hat
Matt style,
Boom like that
By the way - here's a photo of me in the floopy hat - looking particularly cocky and foolish:
.JPG)
Friday, March 21, 2008
I (almost) Was a Mail-Order Husband
The first and, to this day, only time that I have received a marriage proposal, was during the summer of 1997, when I was 21. The problem is that I didn't receive the proposal from the woman who wanted me to marry her. In fact, to this day, I've never met her.
I put myself through college, so in addition to working during the academic year, I also worked multiple jobs during the summer, and one of these jobs was at the office of my mother, a family law attorney.
Incidentally, if you want to lose all faith in humanity, I highly recommend working in a family law office. There is little that allows you to see the true character of an individual better than seeing how they treat those who they claim to love or formerly claim to have loved. People make false accusations of child molestation, attempt to drag out the various issues – and therefore drag out the divorce – merely to have some control over (and cause misery for) their former spouse, and do all manner of other less than kind things. In short, outside of a war crimes trial, you are unlikely to see as many people behaving as inhumanly as in a family law office.
But back to the point of this essay…
This office had a paralegal who was from Fiji, as was her husband. One day, I was sitting at my desk when the paralegal, who I will refer to as Linda for no reason other than that Linda was the first name to come to me when looking for an alias for this woman, approached me and said "hey, how would you like a trip to Fiji?"
I looked up at here and asked "why do you want to send me to Fiji?"
Linda looked at me with an attempted, and failing, expression of innocence on her face. "I just thought that you might like to see Fiji."
"Now, Linda," if that was indeed her real name, which it wasn't, because I just made it up as a cover for her real name, "I know you aren't going to send me to Fiji just to send me to Fiji. So, what is the story?"
"Well, Jehosephat," the name I have assigned her husband for the purposes of this essay, "has a sister that wants to come to the U.S., and it will be easier to get a green card if she is married to a citizen."
"I think the INS would frown on this proposition. Besides, I'm not going to marry someone that I have never met!"
"Oh, don't be a wimp. We'll send you out to meet her one time before you agree to marry her."
"I doubt that I am going to feel inclined to marry someone that I have only met once."
She gave me a frustrated look. "Oh, come on, do you really think that you can choose a better mate on your own? I've seen the women you are attracted to!"
"Hey, what is that supposed to mean?"
"Do the words 'scary cult' mean anything to you? "
"Hey, that was a bad choice on my part. But, hey, how could I have known what was coming?"
"The fact that she was insistent on you kneeling before an altar to Dagon should have been a clue. Not to mention the sack-cloth robe that she insisted on wearing every time you two went out."
She ticked off a finger, and headed for another "Or how about the one who broke up with you because you wouldn't tell her what classes she was required to take?"
"Well, she had some problems…"
"And she wanted you to pick out her outfits for her. Every day. Including when you were out of town. And she wanted you to create a daily schedule for her ot follow in case nobody was around to give her instructions." Linda pointed a finger from her non-ticked hand at me.
"Okay, a lot of problems, but how should I have seen that coming?"
"Maybe the fact that when you first asked her out she asked you what color would best match your clothes should have been a clue."
"Okay," I said, my frustration rising. "I made two bad choices. That hardly constitutes a pattern."
"It does when you have only dated two women. You're no Lothario, you know. Now, we can settle the whole matter and make your life easier by marrying you off to my sister in law." With her hands on her hips, Linda looked like she meant business.
"Hey, I am not marrying your sister-in-law, and that is final! I don't see how marrying her will do anyone any good, especially me!"
And that was the last I heard of it. However, for some time later, whenever I related this story to a male friend thinking that he would get a good laugh out of it, he instead got a thoughtful look on his face and asked "Do you think they're still looking for someone?"
I put myself through college, so in addition to working during the academic year, I also worked multiple jobs during the summer, and one of these jobs was at the office of my mother, a family law attorney.
Incidentally, if you want to lose all faith in humanity, I highly recommend working in a family law office. There is little that allows you to see the true character of an individual better than seeing how they treat those who they claim to love or formerly claim to have loved. People make false accusations of child molestation, attempt to drag out the various issues – and therefore drag out the divorce – merely to have some control over (and cause misery for) their former spouse, and do all manner of other less than kind things. In short, outside of a war crimes trial, you are unlikely to see as many people behaving as inhumanly as in a family law office.
But back to the point of this essay…
This office had a paralegal who was from Fiji, as was her husband. One day, I was sitting at my desk when the paralegal, who I will refer to as Linda for no reason other than that Linda was the first name to come to me when looking for an alias for this woman, approached me and said "hey, how would you like a trip to Fiji?"
I looked up at here and asked "why do you want to send me to Fiji?"
Linda looked at me with an attempted, and failing, expression of innocence on her face. "I just thought that you might like to see Fiji."
"Now, Linda," if that was indeed her real name, which it wasn't, because I just made it up as a cover for her real name, "I know you aren't going to send me to Fiji just to send me to Fiji. So, what is the story?"
"Well, Jehosephat," the name I have assigned her husband for the purposes of this essay, "has a sister that wants to come to the U.S., and it will be easier to get a green card if she is married to a citizen."
"I think the INS would frown on this proposition. Besides, I'm not going to marry someone that I have never met!"
"Oh, don't be a wimp. We'll send you out to meet her one time before you agree to marry her."
"I doubt that I am going to feel inclined to marry someone that I have only met once."
She gave me a frustrated look. "Oh, come on, do you really think that you can choose a better mate on your own? I've seen the women you are attracted to!"
"Hey, what is that supposed to mean?"
"Do the words 'scary cult' mean anything to you? "
"Hey, that was a bad choice on my part. But, hey, how could I have known what was coming?"
"The fact that she was insistent on you kneeling before an altar to Dagon should have been a clue. Not to mention the sack-cloth robe that she insisted on wearing every time you two went out."
She ticked off a finger, and headed for another "Or how about the one who broke up with you because you wouldn't tell her what classes she was required to take?"
"Well, she had some problems…"
"And she wanted you to pick out her outfits for her. Every day. Including when you were out of town. And she wanted you to create a daily schedule for her ot follow in case nobody was around to give her instructions." Linda pointed a finger from her non-ticked hand at me.
"Okay, a lot of problems, but how should I have seen that coming?"
"Maybe the fact that when you first asked her out she asked you what color would best match your clothes should have been a clue."
"Okay," I said, my frustration rising. "I made two bad choices. That hardly constitutes a pattern."
"It does when you have only dated two women. You're no Lothario, you know. Now, we can settle the whole matter and make your life easier by marrying you off to my sister in law." With her hands on her hips, Linda looked like she meant business.
"Hey, I am not marrying your sister-in-law, and that is final! I don't see how marrying her will do anyone any good, especially me!"
And that was the last I heard of it. However, for some time later, whenever I related this story to a male friend thinking that he would get a good laugh out of it, he instead got a thoughtful look on his face and asked "Do you think they're still looking for someone?"
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Fagan on the Daily Show
So, first, take a look at this - one of my former instructors from graduate school is speaking with John Stewart:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=164181&title=brian-fagan
(I tried to embed it, but it wouldn't take, so just go to the website)
Okay, so I have to say that it is very odd to see Brian talking and being relatively calm. He was always very excitable in class and when we'd talk to him in the halls or his office. That being said, look at the expression on his face when he talks about "water mountains" - he's clearly fascinated and enjoying himself. When people say, as the Graham Hancocks and other nutjobs on the planet tend to, that archaeologists "want to make everything boring", they are clearly talking out of their asses. Brian is clearly fascinated, as are his colleagues (myself among them). This isn't boring, it's amazing.
Now, funny Brian Fagan story...
When I was in graduate school, I attended the Society for American Archaeology conferences every year. One year we were in Milwaukee, and I attended one of the evening "meet n' greet" type functions. I walked into the room and saw a crowd of young women gathered around...something. Thinking little of it, I went to grab a snack from the snack table, and heard a British voice call out "Armstrong, haul your sorry carcass over here!" Lo and behold, the young women were all gathered around Brian.
Well, I walked over, and before I could say "Hi, Brian, what's shakin' the bacon, Homeskilet?" he had grabbed me, pulled me to the center of the crowd, and was stating loudly -
"Ladies, you are very fortunate. Let me introduce Matthew Armstrong! He is a brilliant archaeologist, and is clearly one of our rising stars!"
Not sure what else to say, I sheepishly said "well, It remains to be seen..."
"Nonsense, man." Brian then waved his hand to take in the crowd around us, "ladies, expect big things from this man. You are fortunate to be meeting him now, for he is brilliant!"
"Uhh, well, let's see if I can get a job before we start talking about my magnificence..."
"Fair enough. Well, I bid you all a good night."
And with that, he headed out the door and made good his escape.
So, there are two things I learned this night:
1. Brian Fagan has groupies
2. Brian Fagan is rather shy and likes to distract attention away from himself
And so, I am one of the few people I know of who can honestly say that Brian Fagan, perhaps the best known archaeologist currently living, tried to impress women on his behalf.
I rock!
One more bit o' info: Brian's nickname for me is "software salesman." Probably because I used to work in marketing for the tech industry.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=164181&title=brian-fagan
(I tried to embed it, but it wouldn't take, so just go to the website)
Okay, so I have to say that it is very odd to see Brian talking and being relatively calm. He was always very excitable in class and when we'd talk to him in the halls or his office. That being said, look at the expression on his face when he talks about "water mountains" - he's clearly fascinated and enjoying himself. When people say, as the Graham Hancocks and other nutjobs on the planet tend to, that archaeologists "want to make everything boring", they are clearly talking out of their asses. Brian is clearly fascinated, as are his colleagues (myself among them). This isn't boring, it's amazing.
Now, funny Brian Fagan story...
When I was in graduate school, I attended the Society for American Archaeology conferences every year. One year we were in Milwaukee, and I attended one of the evening "meet n' greet" type functions. I walked into the room and saw a crowd of young women gathered around...something. Thinking little of it, I went to grab a snack from the snack table, and heard a British voice call out "Armstrong, haul your sorry carcass over here!" Lo and behold, the young women were all gathered around Brian.
Well, I walked over, and before I could say "Hi, Brian, what's shakin' the bacon, Homeskilet?" he had grabbed me, pulled me to the center of the crowd, and was stating loudly -
"Ladies, you are very fortunate. Let me introduce Matthew Armstrong! He is a brilliant archaeologist, and is clearly one of our rising stars!"
Not sure what else to say, I sheepishly said "well, It remains to be seen..."
"Nonsense, man." Brian then waved his hand to take in the crowd around us, "ladies, expect big things from this man. You are fortunate to be meeting him now, for he is brilliant!"
"Uhh, well, let's see if I can get a job before we start talking about my magnificence..."
"Fair enough. Well, I bid you all a good night."
And with that, he headed out the door and made good his escape.
So, there are two things I learned this night:
1. Brian Fagan has groupies
2. Brian Fagan is rather shy and likes to distract attention away from himself
And so, I am one of the few people I know of who can honestly say that Brian Fagan, perhaps the best known archaeologist currently living, tried to impress women on his behalf.
I rock!
One more bit o' info: Brian's nickname for me is "software salesman." Probably because I used to work in marketing for the tech industry.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Kickin it with Dawkins
My friend John recently moved back to California (state motto: "once you get over the sticker shock, the pain of the mortgage really sets in"), which by the accounts of anyone who A) knows John, and B) lives in California, is a pretty groovy thing. He contacted me to let me know that he had returned to our state from Indiana (state motto: "why do we need a state motto?"). This resulted in me inviting John to come spend some time in the Bay Area, which he graciously accepted.
It was at this point that another rather excellent fellow that I know, Dave (who, like me, has always lived in California, but has spent time in Southern California - regional motto: "there's something north of San Luis Obispo?"), contacted me to let me know that Richard "fuckin'" Dawkins was going to be speaking in Berkely (legend holds that he was granted the epithet "fuckin'" after a steel cage match in which he went nine rounds pounding on Duane Gish - the fight was over after 30 seconds, but he wouldn't let anyone into the cage to pull Gish out.
For an encore, he took on the entire Watchtower Society single handedly in an incident that the Jehovah's Witnesses now refer to in hushed tones as "the thrashing by the limey"). So, I called John and let him know. John was excited, and this is where the third and fourth people enter the story - another very good guy I know by the name of Aaron (who has lived in California for the second half of his life, but did live in Maine [state motto: "at least we're not Florida"] for a good chunk of his life), and Aaron's fiance Nicole (who is from Iowa - motto: "Not as flat as Kansas!"). John was with Aaron when I told him the news, which caused us to think that Aaron should be invited, which, in turn, led us to think that Aaron should also invite Nicole.
And with the pack complete, we made plans to meet in San Francisco that Saturday (which, for those of you paying attention, was the 8th). Aaron, Nicole, John, and I met in San Francisco in the early afternoon, and proceeded to wander aimlessly without aim (yeah, that's right, I said it). After a short time, we came to Golden Gate Park, and found our way to the remains of the Sutro Baths. Initially, John and I thought that what we saw was the remains of an old fortress (there is more than one dating to the 19th century in the area), but we were wrong - it was in fact the remains of what had previously been the world's largest swimming pool.
Well, that killed a few hours, and we eventually heard from Dave. He and his girlfriend Eva were preparing for dinner, and wanted to join us afterwards. We found out where they were, and realized that we had way too many people in the group and not enough vehicles (in truth, bad planning on my part, since I was organizing everyone except for Dave's participation). So, while the others prepared for the evening ahead, what with the Berkeley and the Dawkins an the lecture and all, I found a place to park my car. Afterwards, we all headed to the local BART station.
BART is an odd thing. Now, I know that Nancy, if she is reading this, will find my awe of BART a bit funny and probably rather quaint. After all, regional trains have been an important part of New York City's culture since the early 20th century, but mass transit of any sort has been a woefully missing part of Californian culture. So, this was my first time in a subway of any kind and, not counting the short one in the Denver International Airport, my first time on a train. It really was amazing to me that this is not more widely favored. It was far more convenient than driving, not to mention a bit faster (and not much more expensive as far as fuel costs go). When we were in the tunnel under the bay, a loud screach was constant, but when we were above ground, it was quiet enough for us to have conversations from across the train's car. Very cool.
And now I sound like a dork.
At any rate, during the course of the train ride, we got to know Eva a bit better, which was very groovy, as I now see what a really great individual she is - Dave has chosen well. Also, this lead to discussions about welding, tattoos, and the different quality of East Coast vs. West Coast subway urine (Nancy, if you're reading, Eva assures me that San Francisco BART urine is fresher and more healthful than New york subway urine).
Well, we got to Berkeley about an hour before the talk. When we entered the building that houses the auditorium, we discovered that a line stretched throughout the entire length of the hallway that formed the building's outer perimiter. Apparently people had begun lining up hours earlier. We were a bit concerned about getting in (Dave especially so), but we took our place at the end of the line (and within minutes the line behind us was outside of the building and winding around the courtyard).
It is often said that the non-religious can not or will not form social groups or provide each other with support and a sense of belonging that religions do. What a load of crap. As evidence I provide things such as James Randi's "The Amazing Meeting", the increasing number of atheist/agnostic social and charitable organizations springing up around the country, and the line we were in on Saturday night.
Everyone with whom I spoke was extremely friendly, and everyone was clearly enjoying the shared experience of waiting for the talk (and we would all later enjoy the talk). Suffice to say that the feeling of community that I remember from those times that I have attended a church was present that evening as well.
After we were in line for about an hour (by the way, if you are going to be in line with a group in Berkeley, send one of the group out to get pizza slices from Blondie's Pizza - trust me on this one), representatives of the student group who were sponsoring the talk came around and handed out tickets. With tickets firmly in hand, the line began to filter into the auditorium.
We quickly found out seats, and saw that Dr. Dawkins, was standing on the stage fiddling with a computer as various student organizers and what appeared to be faculty members from the university milled about to their own mysterious ends on the same stage. Dave looked over at me and said "You know, I'm dissappointed that he's up there already. I had hoped that the theatre would go dark, and the spotlights would focus on the roof of the auditorium, where we'd see him descened form a complex pulley system while wearing a liberace-style cape."
And then Dawkins walked off stage, the lights went low, and Dave got his wish.
Okay, that's not what happened. But what if it had happened that way...
...anyways, back to the story...
After a short bit, Dawkins did walk off stage, the lights did go low, and a spotlight appeared on the stage, where one of the student organizers was standing next to a microphone. Presently, she began to describe her organization (SANE - Students for a Nonreligious Ethos), and then to introduce Richard Dawkins (mysteriously, she omitted any mention of the steel cage match with Duane Gish), who took the stage and began his talk.
His talk was centered on his book "The God Delusion", which has just come out in paperback, and on addressing criticisms he had received for having written the book. I'll not go into the details of the talk - you can easily find and read the book, and similar talks by Dawkins as well as media appearances in which he discusses the same matters are easily accessible on Youtube, as well as other internet sites. What was fascinating to me was the way in which having an author actually speaking about (and reading from) a work will change the way that it is read. I had experienced this in the past, when I would meet or hear talks by researchers, and then find that I was reading their works in a different way than before. In this case, parts of the God Delusion that I found to be offensively shrill (and note that I actually agree with much of what was said in the book, but I found the perceived tone frustrating), when read by the author, came off as being funny, thoughtful, or simply direct, but not shrill. Frankly, I did not much care for the book I read it, but now I think I may re-read it. It's amazing how much information is conveyed by the tone of voice and the cadance of speech, two things that don't come out in print.
At any rate, the talk was really very entertaining, and if you get a chance, I highly recommend taking the opportunity to hear Dawkins speak. The talk ended with a Q&A session that was interesting, though brief.
After the talk, I walked out to a table set up by the Center for Inquiry (a pro-critical thinking think-tank type organization), and discovered that they have just opened a San Francisco office (groovy), and I bought a Richard Dawkins book tour T-shirt (how many biology professors have rockband-style tour t-shirts? Only one that I know of, my friend). I then proceeded outside to see that Dave and Eva were standing, books in hand, to have them signed. Yep, not only did ol' Tricky Dicky Dawkins have a rocktour t-shirt, he also had a line of fans (and there were literally hundreds of people in line) waiting for his autograph.
Again, how many biology professors can claim that?
Well, in honor of Dr. Dawkin's native land, we did our best impression of Brittons and cued in line waiting our turn. Again, the folks around us seemed pretty cool, and everyone was happy to be there. When we finally got up to the front of the line, Dave, Eva, and John got their books signed, and we all got a group photo taken with Doc Dawkins.
Afterwards, we headed out to a bar in Berkeley for some drinks, food, and some conversation. I don't recall the name of the bar, though I do remember that someone had scrawled "Unholy" on the towel dispenser in the men's room. I don't know why. We got to hear what John had been up to, heard more from Eva, and Dave discussed his philosophy on approaching reality (which, considering that we formed them seperately during times where we had limited contact with each other, are bizarrely like my own).
In all, a good night, and I think a good time was had by all.
Part of me feels bad about posting a "what I did with my weekend" blog - I'm sure that many folsk want to hear more about inane government officials and nutty professors and less about my personal life. But, you know, it was a great way to spend a day.
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