Questions that need to be answered

If one knows that one's family has been shattered - say by the serving of divorce papers from one spouse to the other, which is the better thing to do? Sleepwalk through the old holiday rituals, pretending that things are just as they always were, or refrain, knowing that things will never be that way again?

One other question - why are the presents that I paid for, and no one else paid for, still welcome at the Christmas celebration when I am not welcome there. Does money really mean that much?

And if I paid for the present, and I am not allowed to attend the party, then why does the tag still say it is from "Both of us?"

Am I petty for noticing that while my money apparently means nothing, your money and time are precious and should be appreciated and praised by all?

Sorry to interrupt the high-larious tale but

Dear Readers,

Sorry for the lapse in my tale. I think you will understand in a moment why the story-telling went on hiatus.

Turns out that Mrs. Tripp very much did not like my layoff from IBM. Mrs. Tripp especially did NOT like my boondoggle to Switzerland.

Mrs. Tripp let her feelings be known by, today, having me served with divorce papers. And, I sh*t you not, this very same day I got a formal job offer for a great job at nearly my previous pay.

Yeah. I believe the term "whipsawed" applies here. And only nine more shopping days before Christmas. Wow.

I guess I am fortunate to discover the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. Tripp's true feelings before the money starts coming in again. Some things you just can't take back, and I think Divorce papers are one of those things.

Tripp goes to a backyard barbecue

Anyone joining the party here should go back here and read the story from the start. I really wish the blog tool allowed one to write things from the top down.

As you recall, dear Readers, when last we left Tripp he had recently had his port testicle novocained, and he was anticipating the excitement and fun that would ensue once the female Dr. Gray really got the party started. Let us resume the story at that point . . .

Phantom baseball played with a tennis ball

Anyone joining the party here should go back here and read the story from the start. I really wish the blog tool allowed one to write things from the top down.

As you recall, dear Readers, when last we left Tripp he had recently had his jewels shaved, in icy water, but he was recovering nicely under the warmth of a heat lamp. Let us resume the story at that point . . .

I basked in the warmth of the heat lamp, enjoying my relief and enjoying my satisfaction. I felt the relief that one feels when one has had an ordeal, and when the ordeal is over, and I felt the satisfaction that comes from knowing that one has successfully "bit the bullet," that one has "manned up," and that one has "thought of England" (TY, Debbie!), and one has come out the other side.

While I was basking, Dr. Gray, the female Dr. Gray, came into the room, and she sat down and she began examining my now-warm sctrotum. I thought "Now this is more like it," and I was relaxed, but the thing is that I should not have been relaxed. I should not have been feeling good.

Do you recall, back in the previous chapter, how I was thinking about words like "procedure" and "just" and "feminism" whilst being shaved? Do you know what I *should* have been thinking? Hmmmm? Well I know what I should have been thinking. Yes, yes, hindsight is 50/50, we all know that, but still, I really should have been thinking this: "Why is the bastard Barry shaving my balls?!"

You see, the mind is a tricky thing. The mind sees what the mind wants to see, similar to how the heart loves what the heart loves. And with all of my knowledge, with all of my wisdom, and with all of my years of study, my mind had willfully ignored one unpleasant fact. Every time I had seen the illustrations of a vasectomy in a newspaper article, no doubt planted there by some feminist, I saw the blow-up illustration of the vas deferens being looped and snipped like a piece of string and I assumed, yes, I ASSUMED, that the loop in question was taken from an incision somewhere in the lower abdomen.

I had heard talk about a pulling sensation, and I had assumed that they meant a little tug as the vas deferens was pulled out of an incision somewhere near, well, somewhere near the lower abdomen. My mind had fooled itself, and for all of those years I had been willfully ignorant of the fact that a vasectomy meant that someone would be cutting away at my balls!!

Willful ignorance can be a very useful thing. It allowed us to invade Iraq, for example. It allows us to ignore certain unpleasantries that we wish to ignore. But the problem with willful ignorance is that, at some time, our ignorance may bump into reality, and reality always wins. Bless you, reality. Bless you for giving us a reference point.

But let us snap back to the Procedure room, where the female Dr. Gray was examining my scrotum . . .

As the female Dr. Gray was examining my scrotum, stretching it this way and that, feeling the structures that were hidden inside of it, It occurred to me that the female Dr. Gray had more than a passing interest in what she was stretching. I cleared my throat and asked her what she was looking for. "The best place for the incisions," she replied.

I froze. Willful ignorance or no willful ignorance, my mind realized the awful reality that the female Dr. Gray was going to cut my ball! Actually, scratch that idea, the female Dr. Gray was going to cut BOTH of my balls! That was why the Bastard Barry shaved my balls, and that was why my legs were shackled to the chair!

"Incisions?" I asked, and the female Dr. Gray must have heard the fear in my voice, because she looked up, and then she looked down again, and then she picked up a syringe attached to a needle, and then she said "Oh don't worry. There will be just a couple of cuts, but first I will numb the area with this novocaine."

Now I am a big fan of novocaine. Actually I am a VERY big fan of novocaine, provocaine, benzocaine, and any other members of the large caine family. When I visit the dentist I ask for two shots of novocaine, just to make sure I get full coverage. "No sense feeling any pain," that is what I always say. So I breathed a sigh of relief when the female Dr. Gray placed the needle over injection site number one. I averted my eyes, because I prefer not to see my skin being pierced, and then ZOWEEE, flashback number three.

When I was a tween, I had two great friends named Eugene and Dale. The three of us would play just about every sport together, and we would vary the sport based on the season of the year. Summertime, of course, was baseball time. We would play long games, every day, in the field behind my house.

Those of you familiar with the sport of baseball know that it is normally played with nine players on each team, so trying to play a game of baseball with only three players was a difficult thing to do. Our way around that limitation was our invention of "Phantom" baseball. In Phantom baseball there were two players on defense, the pitcher and the catcher, and there was one player on offense, the batter. We played a variation called "Pitcher's hand out," meaning that when the batter hit the ball he had to run to first base, but if the pitcher got the ball before the batter reached first base it was as if the first baseman had gotten the ball, and the batter would be out.

If the batter made it successfully to first base then there would be a phantom runner on first base, and the batter would go back to bat again, now with a phantom runner on first base. In Phantom baseball every hit was a single, and it was impossible to get a double, triple, or home-run. We would play this game for hours, rotating between pitcher, catcher, and batter, with each of us keeping our own personal scores.

The other local variation we used was that instead of a regular baseball we used a tennis ball. The tennis ball allowed us to pitch from a position closer to the batter, and it also ensured that the batter or catcher would not be hurt if they were hit by either a pitched ball or by a foul ball.

My flashback took me into a game of phantom baseball, on a hot afternoon in August. I was pitching, Eugene was batting, and Dale was catching. In general Eugene was the second best hitter, behind me, but I could usually strike him out by throwing very fast fast balls. This particular time I threw the ball very fast towards Eugene, and I remember that I saw him swing the bat, and I saw nothing else before THWHACK! Eugene had hit a screaming line drive back at me, so fast that I could not get my glove in front of it, and that blazing tennis ball hit me right in the Funniest Home Videos Ten Thousand dollar winning location. THWHACK went the ball, and down went me. I instinctively curled up into a fetal position, and the pain around my groin was incredibly intense, and it picked up intensity the closer it got to my groin, so that at ground zero the pain was so strong it transcended pain, and instead it approached the Wrath of God in its intensity.

The ball rolled around my feet, but it didn't matter, because both Eugene and Dale were laughing so hard that they fell down and they had to hold their stomachs. I was holding a different area.

Back in the procedure room, as the female Dr. Gray pushed the plunger, a tiny part of my mind, a very tiny part of my mind, was able to look from outside myself, and was able to be amazed, and yet not be at all surprised, that a novocaine shot to the nuts felt exactly like a rocketing tennis ball to the nuts. That tiny part of my brain thought "I suppose it does make sense, and yet it is a fact that I would have never ever predicted, even in one thousand years."

Thankfully, unlike the shot with the tennis ball, the shot of novocaine numbed itself fairly quickly, but while I felt relief at the lessening of the pain, I also felt a growing sense of dread, because sure as the sun rises in the morning, I knew that whatever I was feeling over on my port side, I would soon be feeling over on my starboard side. I began to feel nauseous, and I knew that this little procedure was not almost over, this little procedure was just beginning.

With that, dear readers, I must once again bid you adieu, and once again I invite you to tune in tomorrow when I will tell you the chapter of when Tripp goes to a backyard barbecue.

Long Lake, Wisconsin

Anyone joining the party here should go back here and read the story from the start. I really wish the blog tool allowed one to write things from the top down.

As you recall, dear readers, when last we left Tripp he was feeling trepidation, knowing that his future would follow one of two paths - he could face pain, humiliation, male fondling, and female hacking, or he could turn tail and he could run like a coward. Let us resume the story at that point . . .

As you can tell from my selection of words, I really had no choice. No choice at all. I dropped trou, dropped my drawers, and dropped my big butt down onto the medium-sized Pampers. I was thinking, among other things, "A medium Pampers? Really? At the world famous Mayo Clinic? I don't believe it!" I mean I didn't really expect, say, soft linens, or a chair cushioned with velvet, but couldn't the world famous Mayo Clinic have used a flat pad of some kind, or couldn't they have even used an adult-sized "Depends" sanitary garment?! Had the Clinic succumbed to some ill-advised suggestion from an employee so that the Mayo Clinic could save a few pennies by using baby products as a replacement for adult pads?! Was this the beginning of socialized medicine, weak coffee, and sugar rationing?!

As I was thinking this the male Nurse, whom I will now refer to as "Barry," because I have always disliked the name Barry, starting at my Senior Prom, and for a very good reason, which is a story for another post, the male nurse Barry was shackling my legs to the chair with the leather straps. "For your own safety and comfort," he told me. "Yeah, sure," I thought.

Then Barry told me how he needed to shave me before the procedure, and he told me he needed me to wait a minute, and he told me he needed to get the soap and water, and I thought "Wow, you are very needy," because I was starting to dislike him, but while that is what I thought, what I said was "I already shaved this morning, heh heh," which was a halfhearted attempt at banter, which he didn't hear, because he had already left the room. Sigh. I struggled, just a bit, to see how tight the leg restraints were, and they were plenty tight. Barry soon returned to the room with a bowl of water, a washcloth, some soap, and a razor.

Barry dipped the washcloth into the water and he applied the water to my most favorite paired body parts and ZOWEE - flashback number two - Long Lake, Wisconsin, in June.

At one point in my young adult life my parents had bought a boat, a very nice boat, a very nice boat with an inboard/outboard motor powerful enough to pull a water skier and which could go 35 mph, which is a very fast speed for a boat to go. That particular summer, the summer of my flashback, I had joined my parents, along with my younger brother and his friend, at Long Lake, Wisconsin, in June, for a much needed vacation. My parents allowed me and my younger brother and his friend to take the boat out for water skiing, and we had a blast. We had a BLAST.

There is one important thing that you need to know. The weather in June was pleasantly warm, perhaps 80 degrees, but the lake was in Northern Wisconsin, so the lake water was cold. In the shallows the water was tolerable, but in the deep part of the lake the water was cold, and I mean COLD!

So I was water-skiing for something like the fifth time that day, having a grand old time, when my brother decided it would be fun to try to make me fall. He started whipping the boat into tight turns, sending me flying around the corners, then swamping me, then sending me whipping around the other side. This was all great fun. GREAT fun. Until I fell. Wham!

Two things of note happened when I fell. The first thing that happened was merely a minor nuisance - the flotation belt that I had been wearing around my waist was forced up my chest and underneath my arms. I have always had a chest which is larger than my waist, which is very good in a manly way, but which is also very bad when a waist-sized belt is forced up one's body and around one's chest.

All in all, though, that was the least of my problems. My breathing was slightly constricted, as you might expect, but my biggest problem, which I sensed immediately, was that my family jewels, my testicles, my prized possessions, my source of all my future children, were retreating, fast, retreating to a place I never knew I had!

All you medical students already know that, during development in the womb, the male testicles descend from the abdomen into the scrotum, and the scrotum is a temperature control device, caring for the testicles like a mother Kangaroo cares for her Joey in her pouch. Well, without the nursing, of course. And the mother Kangaroos are female and not male. And, aw, forget it, bad analogy.

The thing was that when the freezing water hit my jewels those cojones retreated, instantly, ascending the path which they had previously descended so many years before, and they were literally knocking on my abdominal wall, battering it in a futile attempt to crawl back up through it in order to cuddle up next to my small intestines, seeking any warmth they could find.

That kind of feeling, that deep, strong clacking of innards, that futile attempt at an internal homecoming, that wrecking ball slamming into a steel wall feeling, that kind of feeling stays with a fella, like a flaw in a diamond, and that feeling is carried everywhere, and that feeling is usually forgotten, but every now and then, when the universe turns just right - ah, yup, there is that feeling again!

Yup. Back in the Procedure room at the Mayo Clinic, when Barry bathed my balls with icy water, I remembered that feeling. I FELT that feeling. My eggs turned to plums which turned to cherries which turned to pits. Barry explained that it was easier to shave the skin when it was 'firm.' "Ah," I thought, "Well, then, by all means, make things easy for yourself. Firm those puppies up like leeches in icy water. Poach those eggs. Get that fudge to the soft ball stage. We wouldn't want the shaving to be difficult for you now would we? Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy, that is what *I* always say. Bastard. Bastard Barry!"

So I sat, legs clamped down, jaw clamped shut, teeth clenched together, balls the size of cherry pits, and I watched a man shave my cold scrotum with a safety razor. And I thought about things. I thought about words, such as 'procedure' and 'just.' Yeah, I thought about words like that. And feminists.

And when Barry was finished, and when Barry was satisfied with his work, he dried me off with a towel, and he brought over a blessed heat lamp, to warm things up, and he said that the Doctor would be in shortly, and then he left.

As I sat under the heat lamp, warmth returning to my masculinity, I slowly unclenched, and I became more comfortable, and I relaxed, and I thought "Really, Tripp, that wasn't so bad was it? I hear the 'shaved' look is in now. Chicks dig smooth skin. Why, you are nearly European now." I wasn't really sure what "European" meant, in the scrotum sense, but I knew that I was now somehow exotic, and perhaps, somehow, chicks would dig my new exoticness, although I was not yet sure how I could work that feature into a conversation.

And as I relaxed, so did my scrotum, and the world became proper again, a place for everything, and everything in its place. Ahhh. Yeah. The procedure was almost over.

Thus ends this chapter of "How Tripp Manned up and met Mr. Sparky." Tune in tomorrow when we get to flashback to "Phantom baseball played with a tennis ball."

Into the "Procedure room."

Anyone joining the party here should go back here and read the story from the start. I really wish the blog tool allowed one to write things from the top down.

As you recall, dear readers, when last we left the stalwart young feminist Tripp he was walking bravely into the "Procedure room," the room where the minor procedure, not much more than removing a splinter, really, was going to be performed. Let us resume the story there . . .

I walked calmly into the procedure room, shoulders back, chest out, with, I would like to think, a certain elegant ease which showed that not only did I have no fear, but which also showed that I was a man of the world, I was on top of my game, and certainly nothing as minor as just a vasectomy would knock me off of my pedestal.

I entered the "Procedure room" and Dr. Gray, the female Dr. Gray, left the room, presumably to wash up. I noticed that she had left and I thought, "Well, the whole point of the procedure, after all, is sterility. Ha Ha." I made myself laugh with my private little joke. Then I laughed a little more, to myself, and I impressed myself with how cool I was under the circumstances. "Tripp," I thought, "you are impressively cool under these circumstances."

A young man then walked in, and I presumed he was perhaps the towel boy, bringing linens, or perhaps a busboy of some kind, ready to clean away any clutter. I ignored him as he went to a cabinet and removed some cloths. I ignored him as he turned around, and I ignored him as he put a Pampers disposable diaper onto a chair. I did not ignore him when he instructed me to remove my pants, remove my underpants, and sit down on the chair. He instructed me to sit down on the chair with the Pampers curled halfheartedly on it like a mostly-dead fishing worm. He instructed me to sit down on the chair which I saw, when I looked at it closer, had leg restraints!? WTF?!

I realized, at that moment, that this young man was the Nurse, and I realized that it would be him who would be preparing me for the surgery. Yes, dear readers, you are understanding me correctly. You get the picture. I got the picture. A MAN would be pseudo-fondling my, um, wedding tackle, and a WOMAN would be hacking away at my vas deferens, my sacred manhood. Um, I mean she would be performing the little snip snip.

That was the first moment when it occurred to me that this minor event in my life, this teeny tiny little 'procedure thing' may not go exactly as I had planned. That was the moment when I knew, as much as any man knows any thing, that I had a choice - I had a very distinct choice. I could "Man up" and get fondled by a man and hacked by a woman, or I could bolt from the room and never come back, and face a lifetime of condoms and a lifetime of condemnations and a lifetime of pointed reminders about the time when Tripp ran like the wind.

Once again, I must leave you, dear readers. I am called elsewhere. But tune in tomorrow for the next chapter in the story of "How Tripp Manned up and met Mr. Sparky."

My Date with Sparky

My Date with Sparky

Alright, Dear Readers, I get the message, stop with the emails. Too much hard science and misty angst makes Tripp a dull blogger. Okay, today I am in the mood for some humor, and I am in the mood for some fun.

Gather round, boys and girls. Please come in close. Closer. Leave room for the little ones. Everyone comfy? Good.

I would like to tell you the story of the day when Tripp “Manned up and met Mr. Sparky.”

Now before we start with the story, I want to make sure that we all understand the details and the background and the context for this story. Sally, please explain to Timmy what context means, but do it quietly. Thank you.

As we all know, the purpose of life is to create more life. And as we also all know, God has made us so that we are nudged, or even compelled, to serve our purpose, and because our God is a good God, our God uses positive reinforcement instead of negative reinforcement to compel us. Let us thank our God for this. “Thanks God! Thank you for making us horny!!”

Now in addition to giving us the compulsion to make more life, God also gives us a brain to realize that there must be balance in everything. Some people call this balance "harmony," some call it the "yin and the yang," and, yes, Little Timmy? Do you know what we call it? . . . That’s right, Little Timmy, we do call it common sense. You are a smart boy.

So after Tripp lived long enough to reproduce, meaning he lived long enough to create life, much life, nearly too much life, Tripp’s brain told him that he had also created a debt load, a very large and a very heavy debt load that would take years to pay off. Since Tripp was no dummy, having, after all, survived long enough to reproduce, he decided that his baby-making days were over. Mrs. Tripp agreed with this, and she agreed with it so much that they discussed all the possible options, meaning Mrs. Tripp said “Just get a vasectomy.”

I am pretty sure that somewhere in the feminist handbook, after the entry stating that “All men must now be in the delivery room during their wife’s labor to view, first hand, the holy hell they have put their wives through,” there is another entry that states “In matters of castration it is the MAN who MUST undergo the, as I used to call it, “snip snip,” and if your man balks at this remind him of the holy hell of labor that you experienced, and remind him that unlike tubal ligation, which is a MAJOR surgery, and which may lead to major legal litigation, a vasectomy is just minor surgery, so trivial that it is often done as an outpatient procedure.

Did you see that? Tubal ligation is MAJOR surgery, but a vasectomy is just a minor procedure, nothing more, really, than getting one’s hair cut. A snip here, a snip there, and off one goes, to the Opera, or places like that.

Since I am a feminist, I totally agreed with this. Well, I also agreed because Mrs. Tripp refused to go back on the pill, and it was either the snip snip or condoms, and I dislike condoms. They are too tight. And too short. Heh heh.

So I made the appointment at the most excellent (and conveniently located) Mayo Clinic, second in the nation only to John’s Hopkins. Curse you John’s Hopkins!

At my appointment the first thing I found out is this: The Mayo Clinic would be very happy to perform the snip snip, but not while one’s spouse is still pregnant. I suppose this makes sense, because what if there are problems with the baby? Would one change his mind? Also, since one has already knocked up one’s wife, one did not NEED birth control at that time, unless one was catting around, and would one like one’s spouse to know that??

This was very sensible, and I was *not* catting around, so I waited, and there was only one problem with that. When I do something like this I like to DO it and get it over with. Anticipation is a killer for me. In class, if we needed to give a speech, I always volunteered to go first, to get it over with. Unfortunately, there was no volunteering early for the snip snip, and I had to wait until my fourth child was delivered.

Finally, though, the day came. Our newborn was safely out into the world, and it was time to plug the dam.

I went into the office, the urology office, and they asked me if I had any preferences of Doctor? I did not. I knew none of them, and I figured they were all good, so I said “the first one that can do it would be fine.” I was scheduled to see Dr Gray at 1 PM.

I left, and when I returned at 1 PM I was sent to a room next to the, um, procedure room. I waited a few minutes, and in walked Dr. Gray. A female Dr Gray. It was flashback time, dear readers. I warn you that, while this is the first flashback, there will be more coming during the telling of this tale. If you are prone to motion sickness I suggest you put on your Dramamine patch now, so it will be in effect later, when you need it.

The flashback was to my college days. Specifically, to a February 14th, Valentine’s day, when I had friends visiting, and when none of us had dates. The bars were full of couples, moony-eyed couples, and no self-respecting female would come into the bar on Valentine’s day without a date, so my pals and I were lonely. Very lonely. We yearned for the soothing touch of a young lass, or, at least, for the companionship of a girl.

Somehow our conversation turned to a local establishment called “The Velvet Touch Massage Parlor.” Oh, yeah, now you can see where this is going. Somehow, the deal was that my two pals would pay the bill and I would get the, ahem, service, and then I would report back to them everything that happened, complete with all the details. Even back then I was known as a pretty good story teller, and if the story wasn’t just right, I could always fake it to make it great.

I recall that, at the “Velvet Touch,” I was instructed to take a shower, in a very dark room, and “Monica” would be right in after I was done. I recall that the soap in the shower was Ivory soap, “99.44% pure.” I could smell the soap, and when I recalled the slogan I thought “99.44% pure? Not after tonight.”

So when I met Dr. Gray, the female urologist at the Mayo Clinic, (did you see how quickly I zoomed back to the present time, from the flashback? I warn you, fasten your seat belts, and keep your head pressed firmly back into the headrest, because the way I am whipping around my timeline you might get whiplash!) I flashed back to the moment, at the “Velvet Touch massage Parlor,” when I was showered and soaped and 99.44% pure, and when I waited to meet “Monica,” the first woman who would ever intimately examine my, um, wedding tackle. All the insecurities that I felt back then, at the “Velvet Touch,” came tumbling back to me at the Mayo Clinic. “What if I get hard? What if I don’t? What if I like it? What if I don’t? What if the Vikings *never* win the Superbowl?”

I listened to Dr. Gray cautioning me that a vasectomy is NOT reversible, but if I did want it reversed, they could do it. She mentioned it was just a minor procedure, and it almost NEVER failed, but it might. I listened and I became a little more at ease. I was older than I had been at the "Velvet Touch." I had experience. I was practically a man of the world. Given a choice, let’s face it, I would much rather have a woman messing with my, um, tackle than have a man messing with it. This was going to be all right. Yeah. I was cool. I was ready. I was, like, "Let’s do this puppy!"

This post is plenty long, so I will post it now, and continue the story later.

Coming up next – Into the “Procedure room.”

Have you ever caught a glimpse of the divine?

Have you ever looked at a photograph of a group of people and had one image stand out?  Have you ever looked at a person and felt their smile like the sun on a warm day, and when you smile back the sunbeams become golden?  Have you ever thought that if you were Adam then absolutely positively this other person was Eve, created by God just for you?

Have you ever felt the pain of deep, whole, true love, love that is lost, love that is completely lost?

What do you do, then, when against all hope you get a glimmer of a chance at the same thing again?  What if you find Eve, but you know that this will, ultimately, one way or another, result in another loss for you as deep or deeper than the first?  What would you do then?

I'll tell you what I do.  I feel a nibble of the pain, and then I suck it up, and I build up my courage, and I look at the sunbeam as best I can, and I try to soak up every single little bit of it - the sight, the sound, the taste, the feel, the smell, every moment of it, for as long as it lasts.  I try to linger in every single moment, neither looking back nor looking forward, and I try to stop time and stay and dawdle for every single fraction of a second.

This probably makes me look pretty goofy when I do it, and pretty stupid, but when you catch sight of the meteor glowing across the sky you don't take your eye off it.  When you see the diver spinning towards the water you don't blink.  And by God if an angel floats in front of you you don't think of yesterday or tomorrow, you don't even think, you just be, for as long as you can, where you are.

Because time *will* move on, and this may be the first time you feel the sunbeam, or it may be one of many times, or it may be the last time you feel it.  So you stop, and you gaze, and you hope that you never lose the memory, because as long as you have that then you have more than most people ever have.

And if you experience the loss then you grieve, and you take all the time it takes, and then you wait for the next chance to catch a glimpse of the divine.

O. M. G.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Chillin' . . . waitin' . . . nice

Dear Readers, have you ever had the chance, the extra time, the lack of obligations, to sit, at ease, quietly, and simply chill out?  I am doing that right now, and it is great, but the best part is something extra, there is something extra, there is something in the air, something in the music, something in my head, there is a sense of calm anticipation.  I think something is going to happen, something big, something personal, something important, and something deeply and fundamentally good.

Have they started the LHC at CERN and had a meaningful collision?  It is 8:40 PM there, a week after they got the beams working both directions - that could be it.

No, that is not it.  That is not the feeling.  This feeling is not like the rush of scientific discovery.  No, the feeling is more like the feeling before a cool front comes on an oppressively hot muggy day, the feeling is anticipation of release.  But this happens to be a beautiful cool but sunny fall day.  The weather is not oppressive.  I am not uncomfortable.  I am already at ease.  What is going on here?!

I am at a Starbucks.  Is it because the sales staff are not overworked, is it because they are friendly and helpful and nice?  No.

I had some really deep, meaningful talks with my birth family this Thanksgiving, with my parents and my dear sister, and my Mother is recovering, nicely, from an illness, is that it?  No.  That is not it.

No, I know what it is, and I've been teasing you, Dear Readers, playing with you just a bit, because I think I know what is coming.  I know why I have this feeling, and right now things are very nice.  Very very nice indeed.

If I am right about this, and if I am in the right mood, later, I'll let you know what happens.  For now, Dear Readers, I must leave you hanging.  It is about 1:59 Central time, GMT-6, on 11/27/2009, and if my feeling is right, whatever happens will happen soon, after 2:00, possibly right at 2:00.

Here it is!!!!!!

Ain't I the devil?

Heehee.

Thanksgiving

Dear Readers,

It is time for the annual Thanksgiving post.  Well, okay, my first annual Thanksgiving post, but still, *the* annual Thanksgiving post.  I hope you will forgive me for a rather, well, spiritual post, but today I am in the mood for spirit.

Today I give thanks for my soulmates.  What do I mean by 'soulmates?'  It is very hard to describe, and I certainly cannot describe it in terms of objective reality.  Hence my journey, for a few minutes, off the deep end of reality and into the spirit realm.

My soulmates are people with which I have a very special connection.  A unique connection.  The connection is real, but it is subtle, and it is very deep.  There is no fighting the connection.  there is no severing the connection.  It just is.

Can I prove the existence of soulmatedness?  No, of course not.  There is no physical experiment, no objective measurement, no testable hypothesis that can be made to prove the connection.  The soulmate connection is about feelings, very strong but very subtle feelings.  So soulmates belong in the realm of faith, which is belief without proof, and the subject of soulmates belongs with other spiritual topics such as religion.

I had thought that today I would be giving thanks for all of reality, and for the spirit of discovery.  I expected this because of my recent quest to CERN in Geneva Swizerland.  Yet, surprise surprise, reality exceeds my expectations, and I find myself giving thanks not for reality, but for a soulmate.  I give thanks for one particular soulmate.

This soulmate is especially important to me because this year, in arguably  my deepest hour, during my neediest time,  I reconnected with this soulmate whom I had only the slightest previous inkling of, just a vague feeling, and yet out of the blue I reconnected big time, and there was no denying it, I had a soulmate right when I needed one most.

I have nothing more than a hunch, but I suspect that perhaps this deep connection has something to do with the underlying vibration of the universe, the vibration that I suspect is responsible for the manifestation of what we see as objective reality.  As I say, this is my speculation, and it is totally subjective.  Shoot,  it is downright oogie boogie, but I know that many people throughout history have written about similar things, and I think I am starting to see what they meant.  Have I 'lost it?'  Maybe.  Is my desperation clouding my judgment? Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  Even so, what can I do?  What can I do with my knowledge of a soulmate but give thanks to God?  Dear readers, you tell me.

This is a connection that goes beyond anything else, beyond the physical, beyond the emotional, and in the spiritual realm the connection borders on the connection to God.

I know, without a doubt, that I would die for my soulmate.  For my soulmate I would endure anything for any length of time, just as I would for my kids, although my children are not my soulmates.  My soulmates, for the most part, seem to be selected from my peers.  My knowledge of my soulmates is one of the things that gives a purpose to my life.  My knowledge of my soulmates provides comfort when I despair.  This knowledge verifies the existence of God for me.

Yeah, it is a big thing.

And for this thing, this huge thing, this singular thing, here and now, I give Thanks!

Thank you, God!  thank you for showing me this soulmate.  Thank you very much!

About things sucking . . .

My most faithful commenter, Lynda3, commented on my usage of what I thought was a rather clever word - "suckitude," and that made me think of a question that I have had for a long long time.

Perhaps one of my faithful readers can help me answer my question.

I am certain that every single person in the US, and probably even every single person in the entire developed world, has heard the word "suck" used to mean something bad.  For example, the pejorative declaration "you suck," or the ubiquitous declaration "this sucks."   My question is this - what is the item that is being sucked?  I would like to fill in the blank - "you suck - ?"

Obviously genitalia springs to mind, because genitalia *always* springs to mind.  We are, after all, human, the most sex-obsessed creatures on the Earth.  But if so, why is sucking genitalia 'bad?'  Is one claiming that the other person is, essentially a slut?  Declaring, for example, that  - "you suck large amounts of random genitalia" - as opposed to declaring, I suppose - "you suck genitalia that is screened by using at least a rudimentary set of standards for your selection criteria," - which let's face it, is pretty much what everybody does, we just differ on the standards we use.

Or is the "you sucks" pejorative a reference to the old homophobia, declaring, in essence, that the person being slammed is 'gay.'  Saying, to a man - you suck dick,  - or saying, to a woman - you suck the most intimate and beautiful portion of a woman's anatomy?

Or does the phrase imply bestiality?  I know that I have specifically heard the phrase "This sucks donkey dicks" which is not only very nicely alliterative but which also expresses a very strong taboo.

And another possibility - is the phrase scatological, reaching even further back into our development - declaring that one sucks excrement?

I think one could make a case for any of these possibilities, hence the answer remains a mystery to me.

Can anyone help me out here?

Aw man . . .

Check this out!  Freaking son of a Heisenberg uncertainty!!

Yeah, they got the beams working, in both directions, on Friday, just four freaking days after I was there.  My friends say I must have inspired them.  Yeah.  Nice try, trying to make me feel better.

But this is not the very final step.  They did not say what energy they had the beams circulating with, and they for sure did not say they achieved a collision.

On the other hand I know they are working weekends, and they like to be conservative with their estimates, so I wouldn't be surprised if this very weekend they have a 3.5 TeV collision!  Perhaps.  Obviously this is all speculation on my part.  I have no direct knowledge of what is happening, just slightly educated guesses.

Was the trip worth it?

The inevitable question - was my trip to Geneva and CERN "worth it?"
For me, oh yeah, the trip was worth the time and money and hassle and sore muscles and whatever else the cost may end up being to my personal life.  I have no doubt at all that this trip was, indeed, "worth it."

I have never, ever taken a trip like this before.  In essence I went to a foreign place and I wondered around.  I had only the barest of plans or schedules - one half of one day scheduled at CERN.  I also pretty much expected one day of jet-lag recovery, so you could say that day was planned as well.  Other than that, though, I had no firm plans at all. 

I made mistakes - a ton of mistakes.  For example a couple days I ate expensive breakfast at my hotel.  Even then, even though it was a buffet, the food was amazing.  I think everything was very fresh, because the scrambled eggs tasted like no eggs I had ever had before.  The same with the cheese.  I'll admit the chocolate was nice, too, but truth be told chocolate is not my 'thing,' which is probably good because I could have gained a lot of weight if chocolate was my thing.

My hotel tax covered free city transportation, meaning buses, trains, trolleys, and even water taxis, and I also got a free shuttle ride to and from the airport whenever I wanted it.  For most trips the airport was my first stop, because the airport had a rail link to the main train station, and the main train station linked to, well, everywhere.  BUT you had to know what you were doing, and I cannot tell you how many times I got on the wrong train or the wrong bus.  But so what?  When I figured out I was going the wrong direction I got off at the next stop,  crossed the street or tracks (looking both ways first),  and I got on the bus or train going back in  the other direction. 

The one time that I did have an absolute 'appointment,' for my tour of CERN, I did not go to the airport first, because that was backtracking.  Instead I set off on foot to catch bus number 56 that the desk clerk said would stop "right over there" and which would go directly to CERN but you know what?  I could not find the bus stop!  That was the only time I met someone who was vaguely rude.  On the road I stopped at a small garage and asked the guy sweeping the steps for the way to the bus stop, and he pointed me to the mechanic, who said, in French, more or less, "buzz off I only speak French!"  Frankly I had expected more of that around the city, but that was the *only* time it happened.  So I went back on the small road and walked farther and saw a small sign that said "bus stop" with an arrow.  I waited a few minutes at the stop, in the middle of nowhere, and realized the sign did not mean that _this_ was the bus stop, the sign was showing the directions to _a_ bus stop!  Bwahahahaha.  I walked that direction and followed a couple more of those signs when I saw a real bus stop with a bunch of twenty-somethings waiting there.  It looked like the areas had modest apartment complexes, and I figured they were probably heading to work.  I was pretty sure I wanted the number 56 bus, which terminated right at CERN, and wouldn't you know it but the number 56 bus showed up, so I got on it. 

We took a windy path and the hour that I had budgeted for my fifteen minute trip to CERN was ticking away, and we stopped at various stops, and when the bus route ended I got off and looked around and - no CERN.  I walked around a bit and, still, no CERN anywhere!  Looking back on it, I suspect that the same bus route may run both directions and I had gotten on the bus headed in the wrong direction!  That is what I think happened, but at the time I looked at my map and it seemed I was way off course.  I caught a bus going the other direction going to an area that I could see on my map, figuring I needed to get back to a known location.  Oh, did I mention that CERN itself was off the edge of my map?  Yes, it was just a tiny bit off the edge of the map, but I had been assured that it was absolutely "in that direction."

By the time I got on the right number 56 bus that actually said CERN on the front (I was learning where to look) it was already time for my tour to start, and the confirmation email from CERN had reminded me that if I was late for my tour time I might miss the tour entirely.  But what could I do?  I got to CERN fifteen minutes late and as it turned everything was okay.  Earlier, a large tour group of students had been late for *their* tour, so the whole schedule was pushed back, and I was fine!!  Whew.

I did try to get a geographical sense of where the buses and trains were taking me, a mental map of the area, but the roads were not laid out in grids, and the terrain was hilly and frequently the road was lower than the countryside, so I could not actually see where I was going much of the time.

Here is one tip I offer to my dear readers for orienting around Geneva - if you have no compass and it is overcast so you cannot see the sun, or even the mountains for that matter, you can still always find South, or close to it.  Do you want to know how?  Look for the small satellite dishes!!  Bless their hearts, those little babies are on many of the buildings and they all point their happy little faces in the same direction, day and night, rain or shine.  Follow the dishes, my readers, follow the dishes.

Back to my trip - besides my CERN tour I spent most of my time wondering around Geneva, and looked, and sketched (WTF?!), and rested, and most of my time I had the oddest feeling.  I do not have the words to describe it, but I think the word "poignancy" may come the closest to it.  I felt that I greatly liked this place, and I felt that they clearly were doing many things right.  Perhaps it is because Switzerland is so old, and, I dunno, mature compared to the US.  Perhaps they have had more time to get things right.  Perhaps Europe is more like a beautiful park and the US is more like a shopping mall.  In addition I felt sad, too,  because I knew after leaving I would greatly miss the place, and I have been so disappointed with so much of America lately.  So many of our problems have solutions and yet we are prevented from seeing and implementing them.  I think we get a HUGE amount of disinformation and we don't even know it, and that makes me sad, too.

And the people around Geneva - the way they behaved.  It is so hard to describe.  Calm, perhaps.  Civilized.  Enjoying life.

I suspect all the walking, up and down hills, helps them be a little more fit than we are just as a matter of course, and they dress smartly because of it.  No bright colors, a lot of grey and black, but I must admit that women my age look damn sharp in a black sweater and grey skirt and black leggings, and black boots too!  I didn't expect to see that.  And people seem to accept their sexuality.  It was like it was okay for men to be men and for women to be women.  And I hope you know I am a feminist from way back, but this was . . . different!  And boy does it kill my macho image to say this, but some of the places were just so . . . I dunno, sweet.  One walking bridge that I used had nice benches on it, and the view was great, and I swear I saw three couples, over the age of 35, kissing gently, right in broad daylight.  I couldn't believe it, and yet - why not?  Why not?

So I was sad, and I got tired, and I got sore muscles, but by the end of the day I slept VERY well, either because of the walking or the fresh air or the mental challenge of seeing novelty and having to figure things out.  I slept well indeed.

And so while this trip was not FUN, as in amusement park fun, and the trip was actually very poignant, I think it was also very rich, for lack of a better word.  I saw few museums, I mostly saw mundane things, and yet they were not mundane to me.

Because of all of that I think this trip was very much worth "it."  Frankly I'm a little surpised more people don't do this kind of thing.  Maybe I just haven't noticed, I dunno.

If anyone has their own travel stories to tell I sure would like to hear them. 

Geneva and the Internet and watching TV

I think that perhaps one of the things that made my stay in Geneva so nice is the fact that for the entire time I watched zero TV.  For one thing, it was mostly in French, and also - come on - who would go through all the trouble to get to Geneva and then spend his/her time watching TV?  Seriously.   I did, however, spend a fair amount of time on the internet, some of it social, and I think that, to me, the topics of watching TV and socializing on the internet are a little related.

If you have read much of this blog you must know by now that I LOVE me some internet.  It is the biggest, baddest, bestest research tool that any academic junkie could ever hope for.  Plus it is GREAT for personal business such as banking and shopping, and also it has more or less paid my salary for many years, so as I said, I LOVE me some internet.  As an aside, did you know CERN was the birthplace of the web?!  No lie!  They started it as a research tool, to help them coordinate work and share results.  I tell you these people really have their act together.  Together, man!!

So I love me some internet, but I have never, until recently, used it for interpersonal human interaction.  At work, my preference is face to face, then email or chat, and then phone, mostly because when I worked globally it was so much easier to communicate technical information remotely via typing.  Imagine trying to _tell_ someone a long URL over the phone?  Then imagine that when you try to do that the listener does not speak your language?  Argg.

Because of all of that I am very comfortable with typing and 'chatting,' or 'sametiming' if you use Lotus products.

Still, my first foray into social networking was kind of a flop.  I've been thinking about why that is, and I think I have put my finger on it, but I am not completely sure.  Please realize these are my personal statements, and not an indictment or criticism of anything or anyone that enjoys social networking on the web, bless their hearts.

For me, in a nutshell, I found social networking to be extremely compelling and yet completely unfulfilling.  I was really getting hooked on it, to the point where I would always check messages the first thing when I signed on, and before I did anything else.  And you know me, if I did get a message I would usually respond with a message two or three times the length, never at a loss for words.  For me getting and responding to the messages was the compelling and the addicting part.

The unfulfilling part, for me, I think, is similar to my experience with watching TV.  Watching TV and internet socializing feel meaningful and yet for me they are lacking so much _here_, and so so _now_.  How can you stay in the moment with someone when you are not even in the same room with him/her?  I am pretty much a reality freak, meaning for me the HERE and NOW are really important, and watching TV or chatting are simply no substitute for the real thing.  I've never been much for watching someone else do something, I've always been a lot bigger on actually doing it, or at least trying it.  So I pretty much suck at internet social networking. 

The worst part of this, dear readers, is that I must make a confession. I think I may have hurt someone, someone I care about, because of my suckitude.  I tried to use social networking to enhance real life, but I found out soon enough that I am bad at it, very bad at it.  It can be a nice way to give brief status, and to stay in superficial touch, but any more than that and my goodness, do I really screw it up.

I had to disconnect for awhile because it is just not my thing, more's the pity.  As I said. my thing is the _here_, my thing is the _now_, and my thing is the full monty, not the shadow world.

Sigh.

How I Lost Ten Pounds in One Day and Lived to Brag about it.

Here I hinted about losing ten pounds in one day, and I thought I might explain how that came to be.  Before I get into that, though, I must say that if you want to get most anyone's attention, all you have to do is mention losing ten pounds in one day and you've got their 100% undivided focus for about as long as you want it.

Speaking of that, I kinda try to practice a little Zen or Eastern religion myself.  At many times I like to 'stay in the moment,' as they say in acting class.  When I do that the most remarkable things can happen.  Not always, of course, but sometimes, especially when dealing with people.

I think, though I haven't formally learned this, that many times when people are having a conversation when they should be listening they are instead thinking about what they are going to say next.   This makes sense, because in a normal conversation there is a normal back and forth, where each person takes turn speaking.  But another thing I have learned from studying scripts is that many times, during a dialogue or conversation, there is one person who is more or less driving the discussion and the other person is more or less along for the ride.  As a side note, memorizing the 'driver' part is more difficult than memorizing the 'passenger' part, because the driver is responsible for the direction of the conversation.

What I am suggesting that you do, at least once, when in a conversation, is to try to intentionally take the 'passenger role.'  Forget about composing what you will say.  Instead, not only listen to the other person, but listen with all your senses - hear the words, watch their expressions, feel the temperature, smell the smells.  Do NOT touch their bodies though.  Unh uh.  That would be WAY too 'active' of a listening style.  Well, actually, a touch on the shoulder or arm works very well, but you better be REALLY good at this before you try that, or BAD BAD things will happen.

Is this 'staying in the moment?'   think so, or at least that is my interpretation.  If you try this, at least a few times, it can become second nature.  Your body will become still, and if you get really good at it you will find yourself subtly echoing the other person's gestures, and when that happens something rather remarkable can happen.  For yourself - you will get so much more out of the talk, because instead of being lost in your own thoughts and speeches, which you probably already know by heart, you will be seeing and hearing something *new*.  In addition, and here is the freaky part, the _other_  person will also change somewhat.  Somehow they can sense the difference, although usually it is a subtle feeling only, but they will become, I dunno, more spontaneous and more into the conversation.  If you think about it in a certain way, you could consider this listening style to be a gift you are giving to the other person, the gift of your full attention, although in reality you are really giving the gift to yourself.  Or maybe a gift to both of you!  Either way, I think it is a worthwhile thing to do, and if nothing else it can jazz up a boring day.

But back to the weight loss.  Yes, I truly did lose ten pounds in about eight hours, under a Doctor's supervision.  Maybe I fibbed a bit though, because what I actually did was gain about four pounds first, then lose the ten pounds.  Then gain back the six, back to my original weight.

I don't know if I mentioned it before but one of the perks of living near the Mayo Clinic is that I can participate, for pay, in a number of medical studies.  Yeah, I know, the Seinfeld episode, which I have heard all about but have never actually seen.  From what I gather the studies I have been in are sort of like the TV show, only with no writers, and are much less humorous.

I don't remember exactly what this particular study was for, something about something, but the bottom line was that they first ensured I was pumped sufficiently with potassium and other electrolytes and then they drained me like a lizard.  They said that when one loses ten pounds of fluids one is at risk of having an electrolyte imbalance, so that is why they had to prime the pump, so to speak.  Also, I should mention I am a big guy, over 200 pounds, so ten pounds was only about 5% of my body weight.

The study required a day in the hospital and then an overnight stay in the hospital and then part of the next day, so I got about four free hospital meals out of the deal too, woo hoo!  They had me on a pretty big IV the first day, pumping me with fluids.  I had never had such a large IV before, into the back of my hand, and the chill was a little, as the medical people say, 'uncomfortable,' although not terrible. 

Then they hit me with Lasiks, which the nurses said means "lasts six" hours.  Wow!  That stuff dried me out faster than an etoh/caffeine combo.  I was _in_ the bathroom more than I was out of it.  And I dropped the ten pounds with no problem.  I actually could feel the difference in my waist size when I went home.  It felt really good.  But it lasted only about six hours.  After six or eight hours, as I am sure you have already guessed, I gained the six pounds back.  Water weight comes back as quickly as it is lost, which I suppose is a good thing, because in many ways our body is a giant beaker of chemical reactions which all require water in one way or the other, and to stay that dehydrated for long would not be healthy.

But there you have it, how I lost ten pounds in eight hours and lived to brag about it!

My CERN trip is getting closer

My trip to CERN is getting closer.  So far the news I get from the CERN Couirer is good news.  The injector ring is working fine, and they have injected low speed protons through a couple of the sectors in the main ring.  Unfortunately for me, this time they are taking a very cautious, step by step approach, with the tentative goal of full ring running in both directions and a 3.5TeV collision before Christmas.  That energy is about half of what the ring should be able to do, and will not generate any new data that we haven't seen before.  Still, it will be a very good bringup test of the entire system.

I can't really fault them for being so cautious.  Last year the heat problem the encountered in September was a big setback.  They designed a new quench system so if it happens again it will not take out so many sectors, and they designed new test procedures for the connections so they will spot resistance before it gets too hot.  And they have been quiet about the bringup schedule.  All this makes total sense but for people like me and the press it is difficult to not have a planned 'ribbon cutting' point in time so I can be there at that exact time.

Who knows, though, if they made this like the Superbowl I probably wouldn't be able to get tickets, so I am not complaining.

Four letter words

OK, come on, I know what you were thinking (don't even try to lie about it!) but that is not what I meant.  I have plenty to say about profanity, vulgarity, and cursing, but that will have to wait.

No, I'm talking about a very, very common word that I bet nearly every English speaker uses, a word which has just four letters, and yet it speaks volumes.  It speaks encyclopedias of meaning.

Go ahead, guess what word I am talking about.  Really.  Guess.  It only takes a second.

Did you guess mpwf?  Every letter shifted left one letter.  And no, I DON'T mean nwxg - I said to shift left, not right.

That is a good guess, and probably a great guess, and it actually does fit my hints, but it is just not it.  No, there have already been tons and tons written about that, and I'll save my comments on that topic for another post.

Here is another hint - I have used the word at least twice already in this post.  Does that help?

No more teasing then, my word is kvtu.  Shift left.

In my experience, that word  (I'll refer to it as TW from now on) has incredible power to change discussions in ways that are usually not obvious unless you look out for it.

Let us imagine that one is trying to clean out one's garage, a chore which one has told one's spouse that one would do last weekend, but one began and soon stopped because, say, one had too many bikes left over from kids and whatnot that are cluttering up the place, and one tried to think up the best solution to that problem.

So the conversation between one and one's spouse goes as follow:

S:  I thought you said you'd clean out the garage last weekend.
O: I know, but I got started on it and then I didn't know what to do with the bikes, and . . .
S:  Why didn't you just take care of it?
O: I was trying to figure out where to put them all . . .
S:  Why didn't you just mount them on the wall like we talked about last summer?

Did you notice TW?  What does this word mean when used in the above phrases?  What is this word saying, actually?  This word is saying "You are trying to give some complicated explanation for not doing something that is so easy and so trivial that it is not even worth bringing up."  This word reminds me of two sayings I have heard, one from my high school football coach, and one from a counselor I once had.  My football coach would say, when you tried to explain why you didn't accomplish what he wanted you to, "No excuses, just results!"   A counselor told me that was a common trait among humans.  "Nobody wants to hear about the labor pains, they just want to see the baby."

So look out when someone uses TW when talking to you.

Now, there isn't much you can really do about the words someone else uses, but there is an even worse use of TW that you can actually do a LOT about.

Listen to see if you ever use that word.  I don't mean when talking to someone else, although it would be nice if you stopped doing that to other people, even though they won't really notice it and thank you for it, but they will probably have a general feeling that you are less obnoxious than you might have been.

No, I mean if you are describing to someone else something which you have done, something you have accomplished, try to NEVER use TW.  I learned this in an acting class, and someday I'll talk about acting, which I really really like, and which is full of a lot of BAD advice but also some really good advice if you meet the right people.

This is some of the good advice - if someone actually does want to hear about what you have done then leave out TW.   For example, let us say someone visits and notices the new colors you have painted in your living room.  They'll say something like "Hey, nice colors here" (unless they are jerks and then why on earth did you invite them into your house?) and if you say "Oh, I just picked out some colors and painted" it sounds like that was a trivial thing to do, as if one was saying "Oh, I just turned on the tap and out came the water" when the truth is there was more to it than that, probably a lot more to it.  You probably took some time to consider what would look best, you took the time to pick out the best paint, and then you took some time to convince your spouse he needed to paint the living room even though he just painted it last year.

So you did not "just picked out some colors and painted."  You 'picked out some colors and painted," which is an accomplishment, and you deserve credit for that, even if by 'painted' you mean "convinced my spouse to paint and had to put up with all his grumblings."

Take credit for what you have done!

How I see we boomers

Jeff Mincey over at Everyday Citizen posted about the character of we boomers, and asked for root causes.  I commented with my assessment of things.  I certainly do not know these things _for sure_, but it is the way I see the world at this time.  I guess time will tell if I am correct.  What do you think?

Jeff,
I cannot really dispute your characterization of we boomers, although you do tend to paint with too broad a brush.
I wanted to say that there are well know root causes for our generation being the way it is, and this is not really a character issue at all. We boomers simply did what everyone does, we reacted to our circumstances in the best way we could.
Shared adversity enhances certain character traits - a sense of community, pulling together, and looking out for each other. The adversity of WWII did not affect the US the same way as it affected other countries. Much of the so-called 'socialism' in the developed world was a result of the adversity those people faced during WWII.
In addition, after WWII the US was the only first-world country left un-devastated. After WWII the powers that be in the US, the 'captains of industry,' designed a plan for the remainder of the twenty-first century. Those with real power designed the system we now have - they designed the global economy which would have the US on top, and the US citizens would be the consumers that provide the 'engine' for the global economy. These designers recruited academia, primarily the economic Professors, and they persuaded and then bought the politicians to make the laws.
This was an intentional plan, and they even made parts of it public. That plan worked to a degree. The problem we now face is that the global economy plan is not, ultimately, sustainable. Increasing population and consumption are meeting resource constraints.
Powerful forces wanted the boomers to be materialistic and consumers. Powerful forces wanted to keep most of the profits for themselves, so wages went stagnant and US citizens responded by first bringing their spouses into the workplace, then working longer hours, borrowing against their homes, and finally going into even greater debt to maintain their lifestyles.
Those are the root causes for why we boomers did what we did. I think most people who have studied this agree with that.
The question, now, is who has the real power at this time, and what will be their plan for the twenty-first century? I think we peons can influence that, a little, but for the most part we are as powerless as we have always been.
The traditional western solutions to a crisis like this are either through a hero, or through a champion.
Obama is the 'hero,' an outsider with good character who comes in to break the status quo and create a new status quo, but it is looking like he will not be able to do that, although the jury is still out.
The second solution would be a champion, someone who is already powerful, a member of the ultra-rich, someone who wants to change things, and someone who can convince enough of his peers to rally around him. Will such a champion emerge? Who knows? None have so far.
If neither of these things happen we face either a revolution or a slow, painful decline.

On being left-handed

In the comments nepata brought up the topic of left-handedness which, since I are one, has always been of interest to me.  While I know about some of the bad ways that lefties used to be treated, I don't recall that I was ever the subject of any bad treatment.  About the worst thing that ever happened was always getting pencil-lead on my hand as I wrote, because my hand trailed over the existing writing instead of leading it.  To a small degree I was also a tiny bit handicapped when learning sports, such as learning how to correctly throw a ball, but fairly quickly I learned to 'mirror' the example, as if I was watching myself in a mirror, and that seemed to work about very well.  Even now, when I demonstrate throwing technique to my youth softball team, we are able to stand face to face and they can see me and mimic me as if I was in a mirror, and that teaching technique seems to work quite well.

I think the first time I really noticed being left handed was in about fifth grade, when we learned about Leonardo Da Vinci, who was also left handed.  For awhile he became my hero, and I even learned to write backwards just like he did.  It was fairly easy to do at the time, and I can still write cursive from right to left, mirror writing, with little difficulty.

I dislike people who are, in my opinion, too sensitive to perceiving prejudice, so I don't really get into the poor-me stories about being a lefty.  Please don't get me wrong, though.  I know that there are actual cases of discrimination going on in the world, and I totally despise that, probably because in a tiny way I know what it is like to feel different.  I hate that crap!  Seriously.  But there is a line between actual discrimination and non-discrimination, and the line exists, and I don't like people who cross over that line and perceive discrimination when it is not there.  People like that are way too hard to be around, and I choose not to be around them.

Back to left-handedness.  In part being left-handed is why I took up the French Horn (which is now, apparently, simply called the 'Horn' by snooty people, so la-di-dah to them), because you press the valves with your left hand, but overall I don't think that matters much, and I've played trumpet and mellophone, pressing the valves with my right hand with little problem.  Same with the guitar.  I play the chords with my left and strum with my right, which is the same as most right-handers, and I can't say it really has mattered to me.  Maybe if I was super great or something, but as an amateur I can do okay the way I do it.  Same with batting.  In essence my torso twists one way when I throw and the other way when I bat, but that never seemed to matter much, and maybe it makes my torso more balanced, I dunno.

What I do think I know about being left-handed is this - I've asked the experts for over thirty years, starting with college, and in general I get the same answer - when the Doctor's and researchers talk about brain development, or brain activity, they are always talking about righties, because righties are more prevalent, and lefties have not been studied.  The Doctors are pretty sure that lefties are *not* just mirror images of righties as far as brain function goes, but that is about all I can get out of them.

My *guess*, based on the current state of neuroscience (luckily I live near the Mayo clinic and have heard talks given by some of the top experts) is that our brains function more like a cluster of processors instead of a single processor.  I suspect that our brains can hold two or more impulses or processes or whatever you call it at the same time, and sometimes these processes may even contradict each other.  That is my guess, and I think it explains why people's actions and thoughts are so darn complicated.

I also think that while different areas of the brain can develop to handle different functions, meaning it isn't like arithmetic processing must always be in a particular place, it is still true that _in general_ certain brain functions tend to happen in certain places.  By the way, have you seen  Jill Taylor's book "My Stroke of Insight?"  It is awesome!

So what about lefties?  I think that in general, in lefties, our brain's multiple processors are arranged differently from those in a righties brains, and some of the processors may even have a higher priority when contention occurs.  Lefties are over-represented in the arts, for example.  I think it is well-established that lefties are, in general, different from righties, and I'm gonna make the bold claim that we are better!

Yeah, I took the huge leap from different to better.  Better at what, you should ask.  Better at a certain kind of thinking and reasoning, I will reply.  Certainly better at artistic reasoning, whatever that is.

I think it is well-established that there is a genetic link for handedness, because it tends to run in families.  I think we will eventually discover exactly what that link is.

In the meantime, here in the privacy of my blog, I'm gonna make a bold claim and, again, state that in general lefties are the next step in human evolution as far as mental capacity goes.  If this proves to be an evolutionary advantage, meaning will lefties get the chicks, well, I dunno for sure, but actors do tend to get around.

Whoa, the left-handed gene was discovered!!

In a comment nepata pointed me to this article.

As I suspected, there is a genetic component to being left-handed, and they have found the gene that might cause it, although there may well be other genes or factors that play a part as well.

Do I have the greatest commenters or what?!

For the snarky among you the article does mention the gene and schizophrenia, which also seems to be linked with brain balance, but I remind you that the article also says left-handers should also not be worried about developing schizophrenia, because that illness is not completely understood yet, and there could be multiple factors that cause it.  Also, right handers can get schizophrenia, so clearly there is more to it than just a person's handedness or this particular.

I acknowledge that sometimes I overstate the case for things, but the thing is that scientists are VERY careful in what they say, and they hate to speak prematurely.  I, on the other hand, have no such constraints.  I think scientists would agree that we are finding out much more data on how the brain develops and works, and it is seeming more and more possible that brain chemistry plays a big role in our behavior.  My educated guess is that eventually we will find an organic cause for many of the neurosis, psychosis, and brain disorders that are currently listed in the DSM-IV psych manual.

For example, I think that I see much of the Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (Different from OCD!) behaviors in the teabaggers and dittoheads.  Google OCPD, read the description, and see if I am wrong.  It sure explains a lot to me.

Legalizing Pot

First I want to apologize for taking such a long break from blogging.  I know that long hiatuses cause visitors to stop reading, and again I apologize for that.  I needed to attend to some personal business, and those of you who know me know what that was.

My trip to CERN is still on, and I've been following the status from CERN by reading the CERN Courier.  In addition there is a CERN bulletin that anyone can sign up for, and I am following that as well.  The ring is progressing well, and almost all the sectors are at their operating temperatures.  CERN is working very carefully this time, so I think that when I attend CERN they will absolutely have protons not only circulating in the injector ring, they will also have them in the main ring, and the beams should be colliding, although at lower speeds.  They plan to ramp the speed up to 3.5 TeV  by Christmas break.  At that level they should get interesting results, but they plan to ultimately run the beam at double that, 7 TeV.

Enough of that.  While mowing the lawn today I was mulling over stuff, and I got the following idea.  I think that marijuana will eventually become legal in the US, and I think it will be the tobacco companies and their congressman that bring that about.

Let me say I have never tried pot, ever, and I am agnostic on the legalization argument, although at this time the arguments for legalization make the most sense to me.  Essentially legalizing pot would allow the government to regulate and tax it and it would free up much needed prison space.

I got my idea because in my opinion, in the US at this time, it is the ultra-rich, the executives at major corporations, who actually have the real power in our society.  I think this is fairly obvious.  I do like to talk specifically about the people and not just the corporations, because if we get side tracked talking about corporations we lose the point.  The point is that the ultra-rich people hide behind corporations and use them not only as camouflage but also as an excuse for their immoral behavior.  Talking specifically about the executives themselves helps us focus on where the ultimate power lies, and hence where the ultimate solutions lie.

So to legalize pot you need a champion from the nobility, and it seems to me the tobacco company executives fit that role very nicely.  If they were smart they would see that as tobacco becomes less prevalent in the US they need another revenue stream, and pot fits the bill very nicely.  For one thing, it grows where tobacco grows, and those areas of the country already are used to making a living providing more or less banned substances - moonshine and then tobacco.  Sure I know you can grow pot anywhere, but you *could* grow tobacco almost anywhere, at least indoors, and you *can* brew your own beer, and still the major corporations are able to have a very lucrative market in both of those.  It is a matter of branding and marketing for the most part, along with some pricing and providing a consistent product quality.

Is this going to happen?  Beats me, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.  In the same way that it took Nixon to go to China, I think it will take a Southern-based tobacco company to legalize pot.  Yeah, I know, currently those same people have demonized pot, but the people who buy that argument could also be easily persuaded that 'pot is OK.'   Critical thought and consistency are not their strong suit.

So what do you think?  Am I full of it?

North Shore inline skate marathon

Sorry for my absence.  I've been a little busy with family stuff - notably the North Shore inline skate marathon here.  The race is near Duluth MN, and it is the same course that is taken for the "Grandma's marathon."

No, I wasn't skating, but my wife and son both skated in the race and did great!  The scenery along the north shore of Minnesota on Lake Superior is beautiful.   The weather was perfect and I had a blast!  Who knows, maybe next year I might participate, although I feel pretty shaky on rollerblades.  The idea of falling on the pavement scares me a bit.  I love ice skating, but I'm usually pretty padded and don't get scraped up if I fall.

I do plan on getting back to my blog.  I finally received the book Entanglement, Information, and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and the book looks excellent.  Hopefully I can get to it soon.  Because the book is pretty difficult, I might blog along the way.  It might help me with understanding the book.

My little art project

Self Portrait1
Originally uploaded by trippd11

If this goes correctly, this is a photo of my little art project. I call it "Self Portrait." Because it is shiny it doesn't really photograph well. The actual image is about 14" by 21".  If you follow the link it shows a little better as a large image on flickr.  There is a story about this image, but I think it is best to let art speak for itself.

Frigging Pawlenty!!

I wanted this blog to mostly steer clear of politics, but doggone it what Pawlenty is doing is local for me and it really ticks me off!

A quick background - Pawlenty is the current governor of Minnesota, and he used to be a moderate Republican, which to me explains how he got to be the Governor of a moderate state, my state, Minnesota.  I know that the rabid wacko right would claim Minnesota is a radical left-wing state, but Chuck you Farley, because Minnesota is actually moderate, and Minnesota only looks radical to you because you are so extremely right-wing.

One of the things I really really like about my state is that, for the most part, we have been pretty sensible and pragmatic about politics, we usually tend to go with what works in the long run, and we usually avoid scum and scandal and political corruption.  For example, we used to have mandatory exhaust testing, but after a couple years we realized the vast majority of the cars were passing the test, so we stopped the testing.  We could restart it again if we needed it.  To me this showed that our government bureaucracy did not automatically grow out of control.

But Pawlenty is now a special case, because he has declared that he will NOT be seeking re-election here, and he has begun trying to woo the national Republican powers so he can run for the Presidency  as a Republican in 2012.  Ironically he has some pretty good national likeability stats because he has been pretty moderate to date but now he has to become radical to get the Republican nomination so now he is caught in a tough spot.  He has to try to play it both ways.

But that is his fault, and I give him no pity.  Indeed, this past week Pawlenty has pissed me off big time.

First he goes mouthing off about Governors using the 10th amendment to keep their states from adopting any new health plan the US government adopts, and then he flew to Virginia and stumped for the loony Bob McDonnel who is seeking the governorship of Virginia.

Bob McDonnell wrote his college thesis in 1989 stating that "working women and feminists were a detriment to traditional families."  The thesis also argued that "government has a right to discriminate against 'cohabitors, homosexuals and fornicators' to protect heterosexual, two-parent families. "

Of course now Bobby is trying to backpedal and soften his image to get elected, but like Pawlenty he is trying to play things both ways.

I've got two statements to make.  The first is to Bob McDonnell:

From an immoral but practical standpoint I suppose it seems okay to discriminate against homosexuals, because there really aren't that many of them, but if you discriminate against cohabitors and fornicators you'll be lucky if there are 10% of the people left over to vote for you. 

To Tim Pawlenty:

How dare you do this while collecting pay from Minnesota taxpayers?!  Either shut up or stop your freeloading and follow Palin's lead.  Resign from the Minnesota Governorship!

Speaking of Palin, can you imagine Palin as President, Pawlenty as Vice President, and Michelle Bachman as speaker of the house?!  Oh, baby, would that be something to see, and I don't mean in the good way.

Yikes!

My History

I have been told that I tend to be overly verbose, so I'll try to make this as concise as I can.

I am a left-handed male, first born ENTJ Virgo, born in the year of the Monkey.  I was born on a Saturday, which means I am a Saturday's child who will work hard for a living.  Chemistry.com says I am a director-explorer.  I come from mostly German/Polish peasant stock, which I suppose means one half of me wants to invade the other half.  Besides the German-Polish I am also part English and Irish and one-fourth who knows, so I am pretty much a Northern European mongrel.  National Geographic tells me my people emigrated from Africa up through the Middle East into central Asia, then over to Europe.  I used to think we came through the Middle East straight to Europe, but it turns out I was wrong. 

I think these words form a very good, concise description of me.  What do they mean?  Hey, I'm not going to do all your work for you!  You are on the net - the best research tool in the history of the world - go find out for yourself!  If you can't bother to do that then I suppose you'll have to read all my verbose words to come.

I have played (American tackle) football, which I loved dearly, and I currently put the shot and throw the discus and javelin.  This fits my broad shoulders, relatively short legs, and fast-twitch muscles.  No, I'm not a dwarf!  I'm a 6'1" mesomorph who struggles with keeping my body fat down to a healthy level.

If IQ measurements matter for you, mine is high, but I have found that intelligence is mostly a curse instead of a blessing.  I have passed this curse down to my children.  I'm sorry for that.  I am happily, faithfully married for over 26 years to a wonderful woman who shares few of my traits and yet is strong enough, and patient enough, to put up with my quirks.  Because of her I have a beautiful house and we have four great children, spanning the ages from twelve to twenty two.  We have done our best to help them get started in life, despite the curse of intelligence that we seem to have given them.

I was somewhat of a child prodigy, but not in the overt bad way, like being pushed into things before I was ready, but in the covert bad way, meaning I was seen to have had 'potential' and I have spent much of my life trying to reach my potential.  People expected great things from me, and I expected great things from me too.

So what have I done, actually?  I did the college thing, then I did the corporate thing, and I stuck with the corporate thing, and I stayed with the corporate thing to pay the bills , and I learned much about the corporate thing that I didn't like but stuck it out, and finally the corporate thing threw me out.  I suppose I am proud that I avoided my layoff as long as I did, and I stuck with an incredibly bad situation right through to the end.  Yeah, that wasn't easy to do, and I had bills to pay, a lot of bills, what with supporting five other people and four college educations, and I had promises to keep and miles to go before my sleep.

So much of the bills are paid, but many are not yet paid, and I have been cast out by corporate America, cast out by IBM, who said "you'll start slow, with low pay and few benefits, but if you stick with us, trust us, in the long run it will be worth it, with a pension and prestige and at the end you'll be able to do all those things you ever wanted us to do."  Yes, I traded my potential fortune for security, and in the end I am left with no fortune and no security.  IBM changed the rules in the middle of the game, and they are not even decent enough to admit they did it.

But I do not want to get into that here.  Maybe later, in the greater context of my views on the world at large and how things are.  Despite what has happened to me I am still better off than many many people, and I am blessed with many fortunate things, and bitterness and anger, while very real emotions, will not serve me well in the future.  I will simply say that corporations are, by design, immoral and non-sensible creations that can take on a life of their own, a life which has tremendous power but which lacks all the good attributes that humanity is capable of having.

And look at that, I was not concise at all.  Yeah, I can certainly ramble on about things.  If you have suffered this far then I give credit to you, my dear reader, and I am afraid all I can promise is more such suffering from my verbiage in the future.