Almost spring

Don't ever let me catch you saying there is nothing to do. In fact, there's so much going on I can't realistically keep track of it all. There was a festival of sorts going on down town in the Blue Star art district. I found out about it an hour after it had started. The family was already committed to running around on errands and commitments. I only wish I knew about it a few hours earlier. I could have rearranged schedules and enjoyed an afternoon with the family outdoors.

If I have enough notice, I can move mountains. That's another one of my rules. I can think on my feet well enough, but I can't be in  three places at once. I once managed to be in two places on a single day. I spent Thanksgiving with my grandparents in Orlando, then rushed over to Tampa to pay my respects to the other side of the family. Awkward? Perhaps. These are people I like and love, but I'm pretty sure I blew through a couple of speed traps in trying to please as many people as possible. Lesson learned: I don't do that any more. It's too much of a strain. Perhaps if they were closer or lived in the same town, it would be a different story.

Up until a few years ago, I was spending over 100 dollars in postage alone to send out Christmas cards. It reached a point where I put my foot down and limited the cards to close family and friends. Even there I had to do some trimming.

Over the years my list has evolved. Generally speaking, those who send me cards get one in return. We would always like to do more than our wallet will allow.

We are due for one more cold snap here in Texas. It's been unseasonably warm and I haven't had to scrape frost off my windshield yet this year. Oh, and for those counting, the first hurricane of the year formed in the mid Atlantic. Hurricane Alex was one a class one hurricane for a brief time and only posed a problem for the Azores islands. Sigh, I remember when hurricane season started in June.

Tyson said it best: The planet will survive climate change, we won't.

I'm not losing sleep over that one, but I am trying to cut down my contribution to it.

science update

Remember when I said the Chinese are ramping up their lunar space missions?
Here's the latest.
At the rate the Chinese are going, they will have an established base on the lunar surface by the time we get there.

Called it.

This is a good time to be alive

I get a lot of science stuff in my news feeds. There's been a lot going on and I'm not sure everyone is as excited as I am about what is right around the corner.

• The impossible drive I posted on this subject a while ago, but it bears repeating. NASA has tested the propellantless drive and even made a few improvements. They added magnetic dampeners and cut outside interference to almost nil, and they still got some thrust out of it. They don't know why it works, but it does. The EM drive still needs to be peer reviewed, but Get this: It works by breaking Newton's laws. You know, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction? This has the potential to cut down our flight time to other planets in our system. This article explains how it can be done. Imagine: Mars in 70 days. A 90 day stay. A 70 day return.  Two hundred and thirty days round trip. Astronauts could fly to Mars and be home for Christmas. 
• Speaking of rockets, a private space company called Space X had a Falcon 9 rocket land. Rockets are at the most basic level, inverted pendulums. Having one launch and land successfully? First time ever. Oh, and they're going to do it again.
• We're going to Europa! We're going to Europa! This is the only time I want to hear; 'Drill, baby, drill!'
• From time to time you hear about Cassini, the spacecraft floating around Saturn, taking lots of pictures and doing science stuff. Now Jupiter is getting it's turn in the spotlight. In six months the Juno spacecraft and it's color camera will arrive in the Jovian system.

There's more, but I can't find it right away. I'm also fighting a serious desire to pass out. Tomorrow I'll be driving to the south side of town. 4:30 comes pretty early in these parts.

 

Giants among us

This morning I awoke to the news that one of my favorite performers passed away. I'll miss you David Bowie. Always experimental and on the cutting edge. There's one quote from you that I unintentionally stole. Yours went something like: I don't know where I'm going in life, but it won't be boring.
My observation on life went along these lines: My life is never boring. Later on I'm going to download a few of my favorite tracks from his illustrative career to my phone, because 'Under Pressure' rocks. Just saw a twitter quote while creating the above link. 'The earth is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.'
Yeah, that about sums it up.

Now that I've got nearly 30 gallons of mead brewing next to my desk, my wife has declared I must get back to writing as I wait for the mead to develop. She's right, of course. I need to stay busy and keep my mind occupied. We won't start anything else, there's no place to put it.
Another rock icon passed away recently, Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister. I'm putting that Wikipedia link in so I can put something poignant I read from Henry Rollins.  
I bring this up because scientists have created four new elements to fill in the holes on the periodic table. (In a side note: your science books are now out of date.) You'll see where I'm going with this in a second. There is a petition to name one of the heavy metal elements after Lemmy.
That's cool. There's also a petition to name an element in honor of Terry Pratchett. Both of these are worthy causes. I already added my name to both petitions.

Schedule disruptions

Sorry for being so quiet lately, things were a little busy. Last week I got started on 18 gallons of various flavors of mead. The wife and I are heading out in a bit to get 20 more pounds of honey. We want to make ten more gallons and to make that happen I should really get 22 to 24 pounds.
I started a go fund me page for Centaur Meadery. Here's the link: 

https://www.gofundme.com/hbfvmusk 

For this blog I write about anything and everything that comes to mind, sort of a clearing house for my musings. I'll try and keep the mead related stuff over on the go fund me page.

Next week I'll be heading to New Braunfels to clean up another store. This involves arriving before the sun comes up. Luckily the drive isn't as far as the round trip to Kyle, Texas.
Right before we left work yesterday, there was a small accident. A box full of glass sheets fell on my foot. The worn box they were in ripped open, landing on my foot. No blood, no cuts. Yes, it did hurt and I have a beautiful bruise under the nail of my big toe. Basically it amounted to a stubbed toe. Nothing broken. No cuts/lacerations. Not even a drop of blood. I'm more embarrassed by it than anything else. Several people have pointed out that I walk faster than the general population. Perhaps this is a way to hobble me down to their level.
So we've begun taking down the Christmas decorations. The girls have taken it upon themselves to redecorate the house and throw out the clutter. Last night I got a little nervous when they said we needed a new dining room table. It was suggested we get new lights as well. I never liked the foyer lamp and my eldest pointed out nothing matched. The chandelier over my head needs to go as well. This would be a simpler decision if it actually worked. It could be replaced, but the new one wouldn't work because of the faulty wiring. Another reminder to get the house rewired. 
All of the renovation projects are related. I got to get on building that porch I always keep talking about. This in turn leads to a discussion about the siding and how the house is badly wired. Half of it is copper wiring, the other half is aluminum. (My DIY inclined friends just shook their collective heads upon reading that sentence.)
The list of projects keeps growing. Kitchen, stove, garage, porch, siding, wiring. Do you see why sometimes I think it would be better to bulldoze the place and start from scratch?
It's a never ending cycle.

A new level of furious

Since the accident I have had to control my emotions, especially watching my temper. I tell myself that killing/maiming/beating the shit out of people won't help, no matter how much they deserve it. 'He needs killing!' may be a justifiable defense, but it's not a good idea.
But all that rage has to go somewhere, right?

I've always advised people to vote with their wallets. Don't like what a certain business is doing? Take your money elsewhere and tell your friends, (and why!)

Today's object of my wrath is Regal Cinemas. Like many other folks, I took my family to see the new Star Wars. Regular readers will note I have a checkered past with them. Half the time there have been problems with the captioning system. I'm not kidding. Every other movie I've gone to I've had to get my money back or given comp tickets. But what are they going to do, give me free passes for life? This will not do.

In the past I've experienced dead batteries, faulty wiring, improper synchronization of the craptions. (Wanna read the beginning of the movie at the climax? That's what I'm talking about.)
Today looked like more of the same, shoddy batteries,even though the manager insisted they were new. How new is open to interpretation.
After missing the first few minutes of the movie, the manager Fran Kaufold and I returned to the theater with a new headset. She had to go back and get a THIRD Pair.
But something was up with the replacement. Only the left side of the glasses worked. This translates to half a sentence. Would you enjoy a movie that they only said the first three or four words of dialogue? 
I'm past slamming my fist on the counter. Yelling isn't going to solve things. Informing the manager of her questionable ancestry doesn't fix the problem.
As I've alluded to in the title of the post: I've reached a scathing level of deadly calm. I thanked the manager for doing what she could and I would take it from that point. So where am I at in terms of emotional stability? I'm thankful I didn't have anything within reach that I could have used to break bones.
So, return home. Take a few minutes to calm down. Think about a solution. I keep coming back to take your money elsewhere. That changes me, it doesn't encourage them to change.
In the past I've complained at the ticket box office. That gets me free tickets.
I've written the corporate office. That got me a letter of apology and more tickets. I don't want free tickets. The problem needs to be fixed. My wish is to sit with my family and enjoy the same movie without interruptions. Together. That's not so hard, is it? I feel bad for those people who I disturb while getting out of my seat.
This has gone on long enough. After talking it over with my family we're going to take our business elsewhere. AMC offers close captioning. It's farther from us, but if that's what it takes... I'm also going to go to a couple of deaf monthly meetings and try to get a read on things. Perhaps organize something.

Christmas stories

My 7th grade Art teacher taught more than Art. The last day before Christmas break, Mr. Armand Mednick would gather the students around and tell us the stories of how his father smuggled him out of Belgium as a child concealed in a suitcase, or when his father burned his birth certificate in front of him, to hide his Jewish heritage from the SS. He told us tales of concentration camps and the people who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. He often wore long sleeves to cover up his serial number tattoo. I only recall seeing it once. He had to roll up his sleeves while we were working with clay on a pottery wheel. At the time I wasn't sure if he was ashamed or embarrassed about the numbers. He didn't like to talk about them. Looking back, I might theorize he didn't want to give them more weight or importance in his life. I would go so far as to say he treated them like a mole, something to be mostly ignored. At that young age I could understand what he endured, but the 'why' didn't fully sink in for a few years.
So when people talk about rounding up Muslims, deporting or even outright killing them, I'm reminded of that last time certain people were rounded up because of their race or religion.

Japanese interment camps. Concentration camps. Gas chambers.
Because that really worked out well the last time.

Here's a thought: Allowing fear to control your mouth and trigger finger only serves to incite more fear and violence. A self-fulfilling prophecy. You want to turn frightened people into terrorists? Continue on this destructive path and you will have more bombings and riots than you know what to do with.

There is a solution. Welcome these refugees. Treat them with compassion and they will respond in kind. Oh, but there are secret agents, terrorists in with the refugees! "They'll take our wimmun an our guuunnss!"
Just what I expect from an angry, scared fear monger. Get a grip on yourselves.
Now, are you listening? Let's say for a moment you're right. There is a Daesh terrorist (who's just as scared and prejudiced as you are.) ready to cause destruction.
Fortunately they are just as smart as the allegedly educated loudmouths over here in 'Murica.
Here's how they did it back in WWII. There was a problem of what to do with the captured Nazi soldiers in the closing days of the war. The answer was genius as it solved several problems. 
Problem: There was a man power shortage in the work force. 
Solution: Put them to work. Treat them fairly. Show the men a better way of providing a life. Many of the prisoners didn't want to go home after the war.
When anti-German sentiment was at an all time high, they took prisoners of war and turned them. Yep. More than a few went native. Don't believe me? Here's one story. Here's another. 
I encourage you to read those two links all the way to the end. There were rough patches, but in the end, the benefits outweighed the costs.
Now, you can keep on spouting the hate and war mongering, we all know where that leads, or you can choose to take the high road and show everyone what it means to be American. 
I'm not so naive to believe that there aren't any anti-American sentiments in any refugees. But I know the way to beat Daesh is to not play into their hands. They want a war. They have a death wish. Killing is easy, but it's also permanent. Once you start, you can't go back.
Dial that fear back and show people what true courage looks like.