Beautiful, well-done video with a powerful message.
I’m preparing a couple of posts on Decision Science, but they take a little bit of research and more careful writing than I can muster in one sitting at this point.
In the meantime, I really think this video needs to be seen. Changing the name of a football team is not much to ask, considering how much has been – and continues to be – taken from the peoples native to this land. We have a long way to go to make up for the almost successful genocide. This seems a small thing to ask, even though it involves a Sunday activity that’s surely more popular than Church.
it’s marvelous – and ominous – at the same time. While much of the United States has been enduring extreme cold temperatures and hard Winter weather, those of us on much of the West Coast (certainly here in Southern California) have been enjoying unseasonably warm weather. I think it’s been in the mid-seventies to mid-eighties for at least a month and we’re now approaching the “dead” of Winter with no end in sight.
Another week of unseasonably warm Winter weather
If this continues, it does not bode well for those of us who live in this neck of the woods. The reason. Drought. According to the California Department of Water Resources, we are now into what may be the third year of drier than normal conditions. They point out it’s a bit too early to conclude this year will be as dry as the previous two, as half of the previous years that started out this dry ended by catching up to normal at the end of the season. They also point out, even if there’s plenty of seasonal rain, it still won’t compensate for low soil moisture and depleted water storage.
So . . . while we’re enjoying the weather here, especially when contrasted to what the Polar Vortex has wrought to our East, it’s important to keep in mind what it means in the long run. It doesn’t matter if you believe in climate change, anthropogenic or not. We are now into our third year of drought in the West, and this wonderful weather may come at a far higher price than I care to contemplate. There’s no reason to brag about it.
I got married for the first time (there have been only two) in my early thirties; somewhere around 1980 to be inexact. It was a self-organized, backyard party held at the home of friends in Venice, California. We were living in Playa del Rey at the time. I was just reminded I wore a turquoise bowling shirt a friend loaned me that he had recently purchased second-hand from Aaardvark’s Odd Ark in Venice.
My Turquoise Wedding/Bowling Shirt
I have a lot of slides from the wedding. Of course, they’ve been sitting in a binder for the last three decades, which is about how long ago I divorced my first wife (who, btw, remains a friend but who I see very infrequently and always at an event involving my brother’s family, as she was close to my SIL and her family). I have no desire to go out and spend money to have photos made of these, but I did try to scan one of the slides that shows me in the shirt. It didn’t work too well, so I went around the house looking for enough clear backlighting to snap a pic with my iPhone 4S. I offer it herewith.
I’m sharing this because it is somewhat indicative of the kind of relationship, wedding, and marriage (despite its having ended) Alina and I had. In our case, it was the Groom who wore – in one garment – something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.
Have you ever watched the International Space Station pass by in orbit? I don’t know about you, but there’s something majestic, even magical for me just watching it fly overhead. A bright object moving at nearly 5 miles a second appears very fast, even at a distance of hundreds of miles away, and it is awe-inspiring to look up and know there are humans aboard. Several years ago I remember seeing the Station, a Soyuz capsule, and the Space Shuttle all pass overhead as they moved toward a rendezvous and docking. During that mission there were something like a dozen people silently flying by far above my house.
Since my retirement from Rocketdyne, and the cancellation of the Shuttle program, my interest has drifted away some. After all, there’s nothing quite like watching a large, powerful vehicle’s engines roar to life and lift it off the pad into orbit in less than ten minutes. The Station is almost invisible by those standards. It’s already up there and it’s passage is almost mundane. There’s no smoke and fire. It’s swift, but it’s silent.
Recently, I decided to add an app to my phone so I could find out when the Station was flying overhead. Not sure why my interest returned, but it did. The app I chose is called ISS Spotter. It’s free and has everything I need to observe the station. Here are the three views I use the most, though there are settings and a help screen available as well. The first one shows the Stations position and direction of travel (along the thick yellow line) from above and against a map of Earth. It also shows (the blue dot) your location; in this case, near Los Angeles. It has a couple of other bits of functionality, but they’re not relevant to this post.
Map shows current orbital position in real time
The second view shows upcoming passes over your location (which, btw, it determines automatically using your phone’s GPS, though you can also customize it on the setting page [not shown] if you know your coordinates [and you care]). I use the auto setting and it works just fine. It even adjusts if I’m somewhere else. There are other settings available for time prior to passage for alarms, minimum peak elevations, and others. There’s also a star rating to help you decide how much effort you may want to exert getting outside to view the pass. One star means a pass you might find meh, while three stars indicates even the Magi might be impressed. Note, the next one I’m planning on getting outside for has two stars. As you can see on this page, it will be at a visible altitude (at its highest) of 68° and will shine at a magnitude (visible on the third view, below) of -2.9.
Automatic listing of visible passes in next 7 days with settable alarms
The third view provides everything you need to know to actually find the station, even if you don’t make it out when it first appears. You can also see here that this pass will last a total of six minutes and thirty-eight seconds. Plenty of time to freeze your ass off if you’re anywhere affected by the Polar Vortex, which I’m not.
Compass view provides direction, maximum elevation, magnitude, and more
I had forgotten, but I got an alarm this morning just in time to go out around 0630 and watch it pass. There were two things that struck me as I stood out in the backyard. When I first spotted it, the Station was well out over the Pacific and, minutes later, it was well over Nevada as I went back inside. In the approximately three minutes I spent observing, that orbiting outpost of humanity and science traveled nearly a thousand miles. The other thing, and it happens every time I observe it silently passing by overhead, was I could swear I was able to make out her warp nacelles.
Many years ago, when I was in the wholesale food business with my father and brother, we got a new customer who sold to many high-end restaurants. Many would recognize the names of these famous Hollywood eateries, all of which were very successful and (bonus) somewhat recession-proof. This was a very good thing for us, as it provided a substantial boost to our gross income. I became the schlepper; the one who had to drive around every morning and pick up the items our new customer needed to service his clientele. I did not mind. I was young and full of energy and truly enjoyed arising very early in the morning to greet the day.
My job meant driving around every morning, picking up the items that had been ordered and getting them to our customer’s location, where they would be either stored temporarily prior to delivery, or further prepared for later delivery to their customers. Generally, three days of the week required me to enter as blast freezer that was forty degrees below zero; so cold that it had no solid doors, merely thick plastic curtains as a safety measure, ensuring no one could be accidentally locked in. The freezer was huge and the doors big enough to accommodate a large forklift laden with several palettes of product.
As those of us who “celebrate” Christmas begin the long awaited and incredibly drawn-out windup to the denouement of the shop ’til you drop for Jesus season, we’re beginning to encounter articles about who he was and what kind of man he might have been.
Reading these reminded me of my favorite depiction of The Man, drawn by Fred Berger, which appeared in an article written by the Harvard Divinity School Theologian, Harvey Cox. It was published in the December 1969 issue of Playboy Magazine and was entitled “For Christ’s Sake”.
This picture has stuck in my mind all these years because it was the first time I had seen or read about Jesus as an actual human being, not some poor schmuck hanging from a cross. Given the biblical account of his life I knew about, it made perfect sense to me he was a radical revolutionary. Still does. Today, however, I’m afraid what most people think about when it comes to Christmas is gifting . . . and decorating. I can’t believe how many people are plotzing over getting their decorations up. They don’t want to wait until Thanksgiving is over; they want it NOW! Jesus must be twirling in his grave at about 42K RPM.
My very first job was at the McDonald’s on Osborne St. in Pacoima, CA. It was 1963 and I’m pretty sure the minimum wage at the time was $1.05. My first two days were spent making shakes; the next day I made fries.
Then they discovered I had experience with a cash register and could make change!! I moved to the window and the rest is history.
A few distinct memories, in no particular order:
There were people who ate both lunch and dinner – every day – at McDonald’s (I don’t believe we served breakfast at the time).
We had a basement and a machine, similar to the one lapidarists use to polish stones, that we used to peel potatoes. The fries were made fresh back then.
The Manager spent the vast majority of his energy tweaking the syrup/water mix for the soft drinks so “he” could save more money.
I used to have nightmares where I faced an endless line of people who ate nothing but that crap (and I knew it was crap back then, but I was already inured to its ubiquity) for every meal.
There were invariably bugs in the boxes of hamburger buns.
I was raised to be intimately familiar with lunch meat. All kinds of lunch meat. And sausage. My father worked in the Grand Central Market from my birth until my Bar Mitzvah. Faber’s Ham Shop. They didn’t sell fresh meat, except chicken. Everybody sold fresh chicken because it was small and easily cut into its constituent parts, a feat not possible with a cow or a pig. He mostly sold lunch meat, or what is sometimes referred to as smoked meats. Not all of it was, but that’s of little importance to this story.
I can still recall the scene after my Bar Mitzvah – I mean immediately after; probably in a private room during the reception (it was at a place in North Hollywood, CA, USA that has gone the way of the Dodo bird) – where I endorsed every check I had received as a gift from my family and our friends. I immediately handed the checks over to my father, who was leaving Faber’s Ham Shop and striking out on his own. He was buying a truck and becoming a peddler. A meat peddler. It was an amicable resignation, as Louie Faber became one of my old man’s best customers and the Grand Central Market was always pretty central to my father’s success.
I bring this up merely to demonstrate my familiarity with — perhaps a modicum of expertise in the field of — lunch meat in all it’s numerous incarnations (Oops!) and variety. I have eaten just about every one of those varieties. I didn’t necessarily care for them once I tasted them, however. Head Cheese and Olive & Pimento Loaf come to mind, but I tried them. Some of the varieties I was quite fond of, especially since they were already cooked and I could grab one whenever I was hungry. This was especially true of hot dogs and FARMER JOHN® Hot Louisiana Brand Smoked Sausage, the former of which we sold in very large quantities loosely packed in boxes of about 50lbs.; the latter of which came in cases of 10 5lb. boxes. It was easy to open a case, pick up a box, open it, and remove (and eat) one of the hot links.
Do NOT Attempt This in Your Kitchen
This brings me to the graphic that appeared on my Facebook News Feed yesterday; a graphic which tickled me to no end. As I have said, what we today view primarily as culinary crap; unhealthy, sometimes disgusting pseudo-food, was a long-time staple of mine. Frankly, I still eat hot dogs, though I now only purchase all-beef (usually from Trader Joe’s) and I deeply appreciate the occasional Nathan’s natural casing wiener <snap!>. This graphic makes it quite clear the author subscribes to the assertion the McRib is constructed of mystery meat. I’m not sure I agree with the assessment (Wikipedia reports the faux ribs are actually formed from pork shoulder meat), but I now avoid this sandwich like the plague . . . as I do everything by most all fast food outlets (franchise or not).
Nevertheless, I can empathize with the sentiment expressed in the last box of this flow chart. I wouldn’t hesitate for a New York minute to scarf one of these babies, i.e. if the only objection was that they’re not really made out of rib meat. I can get by that without batting an eyelash. Unfortunately, there are other reasons involving my health I now refuse to eat this stuff. Doesn’t mean I don’t miss the hell out of it.
So . . . I’ve just got to share this. In my mind, the feeling/realization described in this animated gif file is somewhat related to a post I did a while back on whether we would have any way of realizing we’re dead and, in so doing, somehow miss the life we had so recently departed from. What they’re calling a realization I think of as a feeling. I have often marveled at the tenuous yet, in some ways, deep connection I have with random people in random vehicles heading in random directions other than my own. My mind momentarily expands, seeking the trajectories of their lives and the countless people they interact (or not) with. This picture seems to convey the feeling rather well. It’s also evocative of a paper I once wrote for a Labor Law class, where I likened society to a living being and analogized commerce to the human circulatory system.
So . . . I’ve just got to share this. In my mind, the feeling/realization described in this animated gif file is somewhat related to a post I did a while back on whether we would have any way of realizing we’re dead and, in so doing, somehow miss the life we had so recently departed from. What they’re calling a realization I think of as a feeling. I have often marveled at the tenuous yet, in some ways, deep connection I have with random people in random vehicles heading in random directions other than my own. My mind momentarily expands, seeking the trajectories of their lives and the countless people they interact (or not) with. This picture seems to convey the feeling rather well. It’s also evocative of a paper I once wrote for a Labor Law class, where I likened society to a living being and analogized commerce to the human circulatory system.
Systems Savvy 