Plundering Around in my Subconscious

 

Probably best to start this rambling mess of words with a friendly disclaimer.

Just like one of the characters in the movie Inception stated, dreams, at least for me, have no real beginning. The way I remember my dreams is like waking up in the middle of a movie that has been going on for some significant period. I know something in the form of a plot is going on but I have no idea what caused the “characters” to behave the way they do.

Secondly, I absolutely do not believe dreams are supernatural in origin. That means I do not believe dreams are windows to alternate universes nor glimpses of the past or future. And I absolutely do not believe metaphysical beings contact us through dreams.

Dreams are just the unconscious human mind sorting through the bits and pieces of conscious reality and stringing them together. If someone has a dream about their Aunt Sally winning the lotto and that actually happens at some point in the future that was pure chance. For me, deja vu could well just be random pieces of memory that dropped into a dream with that individual experiencing it accidentally repeating those actions in a similar location.

I do believe dreams are elements of a person's psyche and can be related to their fears, hopes, and how they view themselves. Which in my case could mean I'm losing what little piece of my mind that works

With all that out of the way, I had a wild dream recently that I want to relate because it was so weird.

It began with me among an unknown group that I couldn't see nor really hear. All I knew was that they were pissed at me for some reason. I have no idea why they were upset but I understood, at least I think I do, that it involved me personally.

Typical dream stuff that didn't have any real basis in how others see me. Over the next several days, I began to theorize it was just my subconscious playing with my deepest fears. Nothing too awful weird, and given the times we live with economic uncertainty a normal component of life, probably typical.

It was the final segment of the dream that was really different. Don't ask me how I knew the following but I after left behind the unknown group I “bumped” into God.

Now get this, in the dream God was a short, fat white guy. Sort of like Danny Devito, Buddha, and the Boss Hog character from the Dukes of Hazard television show back in the early 1980s. And yes, he was smiling and giving off this feeling of love and warmth that was quite weird for a dream.

Now the really weird part begins, God was wearing a mustard gold Starfleet Command uniform from the original series complete with the flying delta symbol on the upper left of the blouse. My one distinct memory of the dream was being utterly surprised to see God wearing such a costume.

The dream ended right there, or at least that's all I remember. All things considered it was pretty cool and left me with a good feeling for most of that day. Now clearly understand this, I DID NOT have a personal one-on-one encounter with the Almighty. Technically, it's still best to classify me as an agnostic, although I freely say humans don't know as much about the universe nor reality as they think they do. It just takes real, verifiable evidence to prove things exist that would be classified as metaphysical.

Like one character in Star Trek: The Motion Picture stated near the end of the film: “We all create God in our image.” I guess my subconscious wanted to relieve the collected societal pressures in my head and constructed a God I could relate to in the best possible way. What's weird was that my subconscious put God in an Original Series uniform. I relate far more with Star Trek: The Next Generation and I could easily see Sir Patrick Stewart playing God in a movie.

But I can deal with a Danny Devito, Buddha, Boss Hog combination making up a friendly God. Yeah, all that stuff in my head is a mess. Speaking hypothetically, it would be beyond cool if God was a Trekkie.

I Got Nothing This Weekend--The Movie

 "Hyperpig" by Ducard84 on Deviantart. Check out his other work

 

My winter-induced inactivity is still a problem. Spent Friday evening doing essentially nothing and just to be consistent my laziness for the entirety of Saturday was close to record breaking. Now understand, just like subatomic particles can never truly stop vibrating, I did perform the required household maintenance like weekend laundry, keeping the cat and dog fed and watered, and putting my dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

If I really want to stretch a point, my most strenuous effort Saturday was starting the dishwasher. On the other hand, depending on how different people judge activity, I did spend several hours after that reading. Sadly nothing profound, I was in the mood for an Alastair Reynolds novel where a genetically-uplifted pig leads a group of human refugees fleeing from an alien artificial intelligence millions of years old out to purge the galaxy of starfaring organic life.

Getting back to proper housework, I would have probably broke down and vacuumed the living room floor Friday if the professional carpet cleaning person wasn't coming to the house next Thursday. This company brings in one of those ultra-industrial vacuums that looks like an out of work Transformer or Terminator before cleaning the carpet. So I'll just let them do the heavy lifting sucking out all the pet hair, dead skin cells, and assorted bits of food from the carpet.

Last time the carpet people came the cat was so traumatized by their evil-looking vacuum cleaner he spent the rest of the day hiding on top of the living room book case.

So with my utter laziness dominate for at least the another month I have nothing real to write about. So I'll just throw and few lazy points out there.

First of all we're finally rid of the Orange Buffoon. Despite his demand for a military send off and a large crowd of mindless, cheering idiots but he got far less. Ideally, I would have preferred an assortment of law-enforcement types arresting his sorry ass but that is hopefully coming down the road.

I almost laughed my ass off after various Trump-loyalists started whining about how the rest of the country should be mindful of their hurt feelings. That if the Democrats, and any other sentient American wants “unity” we shouldn't push any agenda other than what Trump enacted. Particularly funny was Mitch “Turtle” McConnell saying the Democrats shouldn't play with established senate rules to force their policies through.

I'm also loving how the people living in the “Qanon” fantasy universe had their bubble busted by the total lack of anything happening. How Trump was part of some double top-secret sting operation that going to have hundreds of Democrats, Hollywood celebrities, and other “elites” arrested for being part of a worldwide, Satan worshiping, pedophile ring. I sure that psychology students of the future will be write their PhD thesis papers on that shared delusion.

Well, that's about it for now. I really should go unload the dishwasher of clean dishes so I can get the dirty ones sitting in the sink washed before the cat licks them completely clean. Plus, I really want to get back to the intelligent, spacefaring pig, apparently there is a group of aliens from another universe promising to help him defeat the mass of planet-crunching, star-destroying machines running wild through human space.

Seriously it's a great series of books! Maybe, I'll get off my ass and do a book review.

This Reality Sucks

Just for shits and giggles, I'll ask a stupid and mostly rhetorical question but answer it anyway. How does any sane person make sense of the times we find ourselves living? Please, I'd love to know why because everything seems to have gone to shit pretty much after they shot that gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo back in May of 2016.

Now I'm usually good for making a tongue-in-cheek comment about a certain time-traveling, DeLorean-driving teenager and his crazy scientist buddy screwing with the timeline for why things have gone loony. My other go-to explanation is the computer simulation hypothesis which says our reality is nothing but a extra complicated video game and that our creator/gamer/god has given the controller to his baby brother while he runs to the kitchen for snacks and sodas.

There's no need to rehash the cluster fuck that's been the latter half of the 2010's. And if anyone reading this thinks everything is peachy-keen do the world a favor and do not reproduce. That being said there is a couple of things I have to mention because we're talking a Rod Serling level of Twilight Light Zone weirdness.

Everyone remember the Alaskan Trailer Trash Queen, Sarah Palin? The woman that John McCain nominated as his vice president back in 2008 despite her not having enough brain power to light the metaphorical ten-watt refrigerator bulb. Remember her bitchy shrill comment about how Obama was going to have “Death Panels” that would send grandma and kids with Down's Syndrome to the Big Hereafter if he got elected?

I never understood who originated her Death Panel talking points but Fox News and all the other right-wing propaganda outlets sure as hell ran with the story sending damn near all the old timers and their right-wing kinfolk into spasms of mind numbing fear. Otherwise good people ended up buying assault weapons believing that jack-booted government thugs would break down their front doors to take dear old grandma and grandpa to a death camp because they was using too much Medicare.

For years Right-wingers lost their freaking marbles over Palin's Death Panels but now the situation has made a surreal 180 with Right-wingers taking a bizarre new stance. Now, according to numerous high-level Republican politicians and a lot of capitalist-loving Deplorables, both grandma and grandpa should be happy to die during the COVID pandemic to “save the economy” and assure Trump get reelected in 2020.

Back in normal times any fucking fiction writer would have been laughed out of town had he or she purposed such and insane idea. Seriously folks, this is a level of batshit crazy that scares me, because if any group is willing to sacrifice living human beings for the short-term benefit or a political gain, no one is safe.

The other thing that baffles me is the cosmic-level hypocrisy with the Republicans drooling over Ruth Bader Ginsburg possibly passing away leaving another Supreme Court seat open they can steal. Remember back in the closing months of the Obama Administration when Justice Scalia passed away? The Grand Turtle from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, lost his Blue Grass shit over some vague bullshit called the Biden Rule which called for First Bush to wait until after the 1992 election before appointing a replacement to the Supreme Court.

Okay, I understand the politics involved especially when it comes to then Senator Biden and his now inconvenient maneuvering. But since McConnell made such a huge stink over the Biden Rule with Obama, to openly salivate over Ginsburg's seat before the woman is even cold is some outrageously cold malevolent shit. Truthfully, I also see tinges of Orwellian doublespeak in McConnell's sudden reversal of his stance on the holy Biden Rule.

Finally, we're twenty years into the twenty-first century and redneck assholes can still shoot an unarmed black man and get away with it most times. I'm referring to the recent Ahmaud Arbery shooting down in Brunswick, Georgia where two fine examples of Southern Heritage inbreeding decided to play cop/judge/executioner. This blatant example of fascist-level, racism-inspired murder should shock me but it doesn't, because in all honesty that shit is still alive and is covered over with only with millimeter thin deep civility.

Certain folks like to talk about all the religious and ethnic craziness that engulfs all those “shit hole” places around the world like we're special. But if you listen that hate and rage exists here in the United States and is never far from erupting, especially when you have such a cheerleader for it living in the White House.

I'm not comfortable describing how worried I am about the country and even the safety of certain members of my family. The situation around the country has been deteriorating for years but with the Orange Buffoon strutting around and undermining every pillar of national stability, I don't see a limit to how bad things could fall apart. America does not possess any exemption to the tides of history and to go against Martin Luther King, the moral arc of justice is not guaranteed to bend upward.

Of course, the answers will come with time but good ones will require all good people to act. 

All you fuckers who didn't vote or went third party back in 2016 better get a clue, you whiny bitches.

The Greenland Delusion

The idea that our reality is nothing but an elaborate computer simulation is something I have mentioned many times over the years. In fact I will freely admit that I have probably overused the notion in my political commentary. But events and circumstances have gotten increasingly surreal since November 2016, to the point I find myself leaning on the concept as an explanation as to why the country is going to the authoritarian crapper.

Yes, societies, empires, and nations do unravel and fall apart, hopefully without some master programmer playing with the source code of the universe. But this time far too many people and situations appear to have boarded the crazy train to Bonkersville.

I fully expected the Orange Bastard's (I'll just write “OB” from now on.) occupation of the Oval Office to be a nightmare roller coaster ride. The Pussy Grabber-in-Chief never left any doubts about what he would do if he got into office. Which is the main reason I still despise anyone who voted third-party or just stayed home on election day because they didn't like Hillary. When one of two choices openly tells everyone it is a ravenous monster, common sense and self-preservation should make you vote for the other person, even if she isn't bright and shiny enough for your tastes. But as they say, all that is water under a corrupt bridge since we are inching ever closer to the 2020 election cycle.

Unbelievably, things found a way to become even more surreal last week with the news that the OB was seriously considering the idea of buying the island of Greenland from Denmark. My first surprise in all this was that OB even knew of the island's existence. Despite claims to being a “Stable Genius” the individual in question clearly doesn't have any intellectual curiosity beyond porking his favorite daughter and playing silly sidekick to every sleazy, murderous dictator that will stand next him. For someone who stated he believes windmills cause cancer, I just don't see OB being big in world geography.

Another thought that occurred has to do with Greenland's population. We know of OB's disdain for Puerto Rico and its people, so I would bet money that he believes Greenland is a vast bastion of Northern European white folks. It wouldn't surprise me that he has seen a few episodes of the History Channel's drama about Vikings and that bringing them into the United States would dilute the growing number of people with a darker shade of skin tone. Remember, OB openly stated once that more people emigrating from Norway would be a good thing for the United States.

Yes, I honestly believe OB is that stupid and racist.

Alas, this fault in right-wing logic is commonplace. Somehow right-wingers did not have any idea that Western European countries are what they would consider “socialist.” Right-wingers will bitch and moan about increased premiums and decreased benefits from their employer provided health insurance, but go into a rabid panic at the barest mention of the United States implementing anything similar. The same holds true for them whining about no vacation time when employees are often forced to use it for sick days for themselves and family members.

In fact right-wingers absolutely love to point out the flaws and failures of socialism, such as the disaster that is Venezuela. But they curiously overlook the fact that some of the happiest, most prosperous, and well educated countries are the social democracies of Western Europe like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark which Greenland belongs. No, they're not utopias, but you would be a fool not realize how much better off living in those countries would mean for the average American. But we're talking about people who love their guns and being pissed on by corporations and other rich elites.

But the most likely reason OB became interested in Greenland is that he wants a grand gesture to mark his occupation of the White House. He recently gave NASA marching orders to return humans to the surface of the moon by 2024. A cool goal worthy of a real president but the time frame is next to impossible. Mainly because NASA's new super rocket hasn't even begun unmanned test flights. It's currently billions over budget with its first flight several years overdue.

Throw in the “minor” (that's sarcasm) problem that the only lunar landers we currently possess exist only as pretty artistic concepts. Could there be a crash program to get humans back to the moon by the 2024 deadline? Yeah sure, but NASA's budget would have to be raised to astronomical levels, but OB has actually cut the space agency's budget since he came into office. For the sake of brevity, I'll ignore the fact that if OB forced NASA to slap together its super rocket along with an untested lunar lander that the most likely result would be dead astronauts stuck on the moon or forever flying through space.

I believe someone has told OB his 2024 moon landing just ain't going to happen, so he went shopping for another grand gesture with Greenland looking like low-hanging fruit. What would really be cool, and sure to piss on OB's image of himself would be to have the Greenlanders vote on joining the United States. I would bet money I do not have that after Greenlanders overwhelmingly voted to stay with Denmark and keep their awesome social safety net they would then go to the nearest bar and have a huge belly laugh at the expense of OB and his delusions.

For those reasons I'd almost like to think the real issue with our reality is some bored master programmer having some sick fun on his version of a Playstation or Xbox. But realistically the problems with our reality lay in the fact that humans are just plain stupid and too lazy to prevent the wrong people from gaining power.

Perchance to Dream

Like most dreams it didn't have a beginning, at least one that I remember. How and why my subconscious chose to build that particular hallucination, I truly have no real idea. My best guess is that as I slept, my brain just threw together random elements it found in the dusty and cluttered attic of my mind. Unlike many people, I do not believe dreams are necessarily glimpses into the mind of an individual showing off their wants or desires. Nor are they cracks in our reality allowing us a view of another version of ourselves. For me, I'm in the camp that believes dreams are just our brains blowing off mental steam. I added that last part to avoid anyone from getting the wrong idea about what I'm about to report.

Since my health issues emerged my dreams have been chaotic. Nothing out of the ordinary there, as far as I know dreams usually do not follow set story lines. But my dreams have been uncomfortably disjointed with many having an atmosphere of deep foreboding, as if a great evil was lurking in the shadows nearby. For that reason during such dreams I usually forced myself awake and then spend several minutes shaking off the aftereffects. So a particular dream I had a couple of weeks ago was an unexpected and happy departure from my usual nighttime sleeping fantasies.

This dream took place in some sort of ornate room. I can't say anything about my dream's location other than I have a fuzzy idea it was some type of resort, but no place I have ever visited in real life. I was laying back in a large, fancy recliner which was covered in a fur-like fabric. Where this dream radically departs from my recent experiences is that I was sharing the recliner with a woman who possessed beautiful brunette hair. No, don't worry my dream didn't develop into a ridiculous porn fantasy. But this fantasy woman and I did share a kiss, which was incredibly intense with how real it felt. The other item that set this dream apart from others was that the woman was wearing an unknown perfume that was equally realistic as the kiss.

Like I said, the dream didn't go any further than just a kiss. Because as I was settling into the dream, actually hoping it would continue, a scratching noise and feeling began to invade my fake reality. I actually remember trying to ignore the scratching sensation by concentrating on the woman. But as you probably can guess, the scratching commotion popped my dream like a child's soap bubble.

I opened my eyes to find one of the dogs scratching my side of the bed with his front paws and looking at me with adoration. At quick look at my watch told me it was past time to feed both him and the other dog, who was still sleeping curled up next my wife.

Yeah, as I feed the dogs I had to deal with a nice piece of disappointment that one of my very few pleasant dreams was cut short. I'm a big boy, so that disappointment faded quickly as I feed the dogs and began to deal with the new day. That didn't stop me was giving the canine interloper of my sleep some annoyed looks.

Like I wrote earlier, the majority of dreams have no bearing on real life. Although I'll probably freak out if I catch a real life whiff of that unknown fragrance my fantasy brunette was wearing in the dream.

I'm Back, Hopefully

Realizing uncertainty is one of the few universal constants, I'm taking this moment to write that I should be returning to regular posts by this weekend. Yes, my cardiac adventures have continued with two trips to the emergency room and another ablation procedure, which occurred last Thursday. This last one had the benefit of not seeming like total Hell. The whole story of my last two emergency room visits and the latest cardiac ablation are far to long and complicated to write about in the time I have right now.

Unfortunately, what I can relate is that while the good doctors and nurses did nail down several more trouble spots on my heart, there was one they couldn't zap and destroy. In fact, I was told it would take open heart surgery at another hospital in Chicago. Everyone involved, which naturally includes me most of all, hopes that my medicine can keep that bad boy under control. Yes, there are other options like implantable pacemakers and defibrillators but I really do not want to go there.

If brevity is the soul of wit I'll stop now because it actually looks like I summed up the situation pretty tightly without all the awkward social oversharing. Here's hoping that I am no longer living in medical interesting times to paraphrase what I think is an ancient Chinese curse.         

A Transdimensional Day at the Beach

The lesson every sane human being who has the privilege to go on a vacation in these near feudal times should understand is that a bad day at the beach beats the living hell out of a good day at work. As dogmas go, it's far simpler than most, if not all religious or philosophical tenets that force people to jump through complicated hypocritical hoops and twist themselves into self-deceiving pretzels. Life began in the seas and while our amphibian ancestors crawled out of the salty waters and began the conquest of dry land are now calcified fossils, we hairless primates still have some sort of instinctual connection with the ocean.

Now it is true that this connection is stronger in some and weaker in others. One of the most bizarre statements I ever heard spoken was some dude telling me that salt water made him feel dirty. That he preferred swimming in fresh water lakes and ponds. Yeah, I adhere to the idea that we all have to true to our basic nature but I couldn't help but feel a bit of disgust at that individual.

My connection to the ocean first developed on the shores of Pawleys Island, South Carolina back in the late 1960's. While not really able to swim, kids my age would slowly go deeper into the water until it was up to our necks and we bobbed like corks in the gentle swells with our toes only occasionally touching the sandy bottom. Given the fear and paranoia the movie Jaws spawned a few years later, by all rights at least one or two of my fellow kindergarten age adventurers and myself should have ended up as a snack for some shark.

During those strangely backwards and progressive times, our parents didn't have a clue as of our actual whereabouts. They were hanging out on shore drinking themselves into a early afternoon stupor. They were satisfied in the knowledge that their children were somewhere in a half mile radius of their beach chairs and beer laden coolers. This wasn't child abuse or neglect, parents simply didn't feel the need to hover over their kids like overprotective angels. It was a different time, whether such parental behaviors were better or worse is a debate outside this scope of this story. No, there were absolutely no professional lifeguards anywhere to be seen back then, it was strictly swim at your own risk. Somehow over the years though, us kids learned the nature of currents, and waves along with avoiding jelly fish and knowing to get the out of the water if someone started bleeding.

I still retain a fondness for Pawleys Island, even though it lost most of what made it special for me due to the relentless encroachment of real estate developers. The south end of Pawleys Island once had an isolated feel, with the quite nearby mainland devoid of any of the gross McMansions that began popping up in the 1990's. The beaches I get to mostly these days are those off Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. A place that is far more developed and frankly pretentious than the permanent residents of Pawleys could hope to achieve, despite their best efforts. But being true to my central beliefs, it's still a beach and you have to work really hard to not enjoy the sun, sand, and ocean.

Last month I was doing just that, we were staying at Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort with my wife and I spending the day on the beach. It was mid-morning and after both of us had spent some time in the ocean she had gone back to sit under our rented umbrella and read a magazine. I decided to stay in the ocean and continue to float on my back and relax in the calm and cool waters.

Given the public location and that it was summertime, several groups of people were nearby me as I floated idly on the water. One was a large family throwing what looked to be a Nerf football to each other. There was also a relatively young couple with the wife/girlfriend quite pregnant. No expert here, but having already seen her on the beach earlier, I would have guessed she was seven to eight months along. The husband/boyfriend and her were playing quite closely with each other in the water making me uncomfortable given my relative nearness and overactive imagination.

So to solve the possible issue of seeming like I might be intruding on either group, I turned myself around so that I was looking out at the horizon. Quite frankly it was a brilliant move, not only was it now clear that I was not eavesdropping on either group but it promoted a sense of solitude in an otherwise crowded shore. Here's where things start to get sort of weird.

Being that I was further out in the water than anyone else in sight, from my point of view the universe had narrowed down to two distinct infinite planes with the ocean and sky meeting at the horizon. Adding to this psychedelic effect, the sky that day was cloudless and the ocean was so calm the shore resembled more a slightly disturbed pool with no real waves. Now throw in my ability/talent to ignore most of the crap human beings say to each other and I became a bit transdimensional floating in the placid waters leaving the normal space-time continuum.

Relaxing while playing with such a mindset, my imagination tripped out jumping from idea to idea, all pretty weird. During this indeterminate time, I remembered a science fiction short story from the 1980's that involved a crewman on a U.S. bomber. Blown out of his plane by attacking enemy aircraft as intense lightning flashed in nearby clouds, he finds himself falling between two infinite planes. This character, a theoretical physics major in college before the war, figures the intense lightening ripped a hole in local space-time casting him out of the normal universe. While he falls, the main character remembers several lectures he had with his favorite professor on fringe physics.

As science fictions stories went, it was okay. No huge revelations on the human experience or the nature of the universe. The dude eventually “falls” into the other dimensional plane with time then reversing and him rejoining his damage aircraft which comes back together. Once back at his duty station inside the bomber, the main character shrugs off the entire episode as a combat-induced hallucination.

The bomber lands safely back at the airbase with the flight crew heading off to the officers' club to get heavily drunk. The only thing big reveal of the story comes as all the other guys on the bomber crew notice the main character, someone who they have lived and worked closely with for years, is now right-handed. As opposed to the person they always saw using his left hand for everything. Yeah, nothing really earth shattering, unless you have lived and worked with someone for such a long time that they know you intimately and can anticipate most of their actions.

After chuckling at remembering that story, my mind drifted off to other subjects. Funny thing happened after that, since I was staring off at the horizon and relaxing for so long, I either dozed off or entered a semi-hypnotic state where I wasn't really conscious. I liken the semi-hypnotic idea to the story I've heard about cross-continent highways down in Australia. When those highways were built they made them close to absolutely straight given the continuous flat terrain. What I've heard is that you can go for hours without a curve, a dip, or hill to break the monotony. Combine that with the low volume sounds of tires rolling on the highway and it reported drivers can become hypnotized to the point that they can fly off the road if they encounter something that changes the path of the highway.

Whatever the case, something eventually shook me out of my stupor. I didn't look at my watch before turning away from the other people in the water. But my best guess was that I had zoned out from reality for about thirty minutes. That's when I got a bit of a shock when I turned and faced the beach.

The structures in the back ground and the array of people occupying the shoreline with tents and umbrellas were totally different. Looking around in the water near me, the family throwing the Nerf football and the pregnant couple were gone. A completely different group of people were now in the places they once occupied.

For a couple of seconds I was having a full-fledged and certified Keanu Reeves' “WHOA” moment. I simply didn't know where in the hell I was located. Of course, my bizarre mind quickly thought about that science fiction story I remembered earlier while floating and staring off at the horizon stuck between two the ocean and the sky. The question as to whether I had somehow slipped the bounds of normal space-time and entered a different dimensional floated around in my head during that brief time. This left me with an intense eerie feeling of unease that I mostly blame on being out in the sun too long.

After those disorienting few seconds, that small piece that is my rational brain kicked in to reconnect me with reality. Remembering one of the first things I learned about the ocean shore, despite the seemingly placid ocean, there was still enough of a current to take me down a significant stretch of beach. Feeling slightly ashamed, I shook off the majority of the eerie feeling and began walking back to the shore.

Still being morning, the near talcum white beach sand of Hilton Head had not heated up significantly yet. This allowed me to divert to an already open tiki bar located at another resort instead of returning directly to the rented umbrella my wife and I shared. Yes, the tiki bar's philosophy was summed up on the sign mounted on a pole supporting the thatched roof that read: “It's always five o'clock somewhere.” For me though, nothing washes away internal embarrassment and the feeling that you may have slipped into another dimension like that reassuring potion made up of tequila and margarita mix.

“It's awful early for a margarita,” my wife said as I plopped into the chair next her. This bit of spousal semi-disapproval didn't stop her from gesturing that she wanted a sip or two or what really turned out to be a small gulp.

“Don't judge me,” I quipped taking back my expensive, morning alcoholic treat. Just to totally make certain I was in the right dimension though, I had to ask her one thing. “I've been right-handed for the entire time you've known me, right?”

“Since the day we meet at the Jimmy Buffett concert.” She said in a totally incurious manner never taking her eyes off the magazine she was reading. No, she didn't inquire as to why I would ask such a weird question, That's when I realized I was still safely in my home universe.

My Accidental Cardiac Adventures

Truly ugly

 As usual did this in a rush, will proofread and correct later.

Well, as weeks go this one was pure shit bordering on true hell. The end result, which occurred yesterday with me being discharged from the hospital was sore arms from all the IV's the nurses inserted. There is a little exaggeration involved here but given the number of times I had a needle inserted into the crook of my arms or the dorsal side of my hands I could have money renting myself out as a voodoo doll.

Also during this time a majority of my chest hair was eventually shaved off so the little cardiac sensor pads would stay in place. This shaving only took place after the nurses and technicians spent a couple of days ripping a bunch of them off taking clumps of hair every time. On a pain scale, removing the little adhesive sensor pads were relatively minor although we're talking quantity not quality. The biomedical gizmo they used to monitor my heart took five pads, and if one went bad they replaced all of them.

What put me into the hospital? Well Monday night I was at work doing my usual duties, nothing overly difficult or strenuous, just the same old chores. At some point I began to notice I had about ten-thousand butterflies in my chest having a rave party, there was no pain, although I did feel woozy.

I eventually garnered enough sense to go find some medical personnel to check my blood pressure since after about fifteen to twenty minutes it became clear the butterflies were not about to call it quits for the night. Believe it or not, my blood pressure was fine, it was well inside normal, healthy parameters. My heart rate on the other hand was the cardiac equivalent of a nuclear meltdown.

The person I found to check my blood pressure and heart rate was one of the night shift nurses in recovery. Luckily, her department was empty of patients, so she ushered me over to one of the stretchers and had me sit close to the patient monitor. At first all she did was place the blood pressure cuff over my arm and let the automatic system do its electronic thing. It was when she listened to my heart with a stethoscope that I scared the hell out of her. Not only was my heart rate running north of 220 beats per minute, my cardiac rhythm was pure chaos.

Mere minutes later I am wheeled down to the Emergency Department with a whole host of highly trained and very worried people hovering over me. Their chief objective was to get my heart rate down, it took two sets of drugs to accomplish that goal. Not long after that I am wheeled to a room in the cardiac intensive care unit where I spent the next several days.

Long complicated story short, after an intensive electrocardiogram and cardiac catheterization the good news was that my pipes were clear of all that nasty stuff that causes heart attacks. Yeah, given my habits I was rather surprised at that bit of happy information. The partial bad news was that, without going into complex medical terminology I know I was screw up, my heart was suffering from some abnormal cells who essentially could hijack my cardiac rhythm. After discussing this with my doctors, I realized I had been suffering similar episodes that were far less severe and far shorter in duration for a long time. Given my ass backwards work schedule, and that I was both overweight and out of shape, I attributed these episodes to just being tired.

Further good news is that this condition is curable- the exact word used by my cardiologist. It involves a procedure called a cardiac ablation which was performed Thursday night. Once again boiling away the technical terms that I would misuse in some fashion, the doctors got one half of my heart done. There was an issue as they proceeded with the second half and that got scary for my family and for me once I realized the extent of how badly things went sideways.

I have to strongly state that I do not believe the doctors did anything wrong. As with all medical procedures there is a chance things could go bad. Circumstances just didn't obey expectations but the doctors were able snatch at least a partial victory from the jaws of cosmic misfortune. I came away with just a truly huge bruise around my groin. Seriously, it's so massively gross I am tempted to take a picture of it. Don't worry, I have enough sense to realize that posting such a picture would be the worst form of oversharing.

My intention is to recover and about a month or two from now have the other half of the ablation done. As of right now I am taking medication that should at least partially keep the nasty abnormal heart cells from going terrorist and hijacking my heart again.

Please excuse my usual attempts at humor, as you might expect it's a coping mechanism. I do have to give a huge shout out to my fantastic doctors and nurses that worked hard to save my sorry ass. Furthermore, I have to say my coworkers rallied around me in a way that left me misty eyed a couple of times. They took time out of their busy schedules to come see during me while I was laying in a hospital bed. What's worse for them is that the doctors are forcing me to take a week off to recover. That means my monthly duties falls on them, adding to their burden. That truly bothers me and I hope that at some point I can make it up to them.

Getting kicked in the cardiac ass like I did this week means my lifestyle will have to change. Even though the pipes bringing and taking blood away from my heart are squeaky clean, I'm smart enough to know things there could go wrong in the coming years. That means far less coffee and sodas and somehow I will have to find the time and energy to go to the gym.

As things progress, I'll keep everyone informed.

Resisting Oblivion

The only human desire that rivals the ancient wish for eternal life is to be remembered. In fact since researchers had shown other animals can cooperate in groups, use tools, and even have a type of culture, the desire to be remembered by those that come after us might be something that defines what it is to be human. I say “might be” because given what we have already learned from highly social animals like chimps and some cetaceans, it wouldn't surprise me that they too have some innate wish to be remembered by their descendants. How we would find evidence of that, I have absolutely no idea.

Some of the most poignant and hopeful pictures I have seen involve hand paintings on the walls of caves that can be dated to have being made tens of thousands of years ago. What goes beyond mind blowing is that such behavior was once thought limited to just our paleolithic Homo sapien kinfolk. An extremely recent discover in Spain has found cave artwork and a hand print produced by Neanderthals that dates back to sixty-four thousand years ago. The earliest evidence of Homo sapiens living in Europe doesn't appear until twenty-thousand years later.

Interpretations vary, but to me cave hand paintings are at least a partial declaration that “I existed.” That in a time long before writing, hand paintings on the walls of caves transcended the limitations inherent to intelligent creatures who know they will eventual die and be forgotten. Of course as humans progressed we created written languages that were often carved into the sides monuments to declare our triumphs and achievements so that the memories of great exploits would live on, hopefully forever. Years ago while reading about the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, I found it somewhat humorous to learn that the hieroglyphic these ancient kings had carved on the side of their vanity-driven monuments never really mentioned any defeats they suffered in their lives or military campaigns. One Egyptologist on a television documentary half-jokingly suggested that any failures or defeats were carefully spun by the pharaohs' scribes to seem positive by the clever use of careful wording.

As the centuries passed humans made sure anything they created had their name attached to it. Whether it be books, paintings, or any number of other creations or discoveries. It's just human nature for a person to want everyone to know that their hard work or inspiration produced something that will live on after they are gone.

This gets to the reason I am writing this self-reflective crap. A few months ago I got into a conversation with someone about our respective hobbies. Normally, I absolutely do not reveal my blogging to anyone, my politics alone makes me an outsider here in South Carolina but when your hobby can be considered rather abstract and even slightly cerebral, well that just makes you a total weirdo in the eyes of these sophisticated and nuanced folks. But since the individual I was talking with seemed a little obsessive over his model train collection, a fine hobby no doubt, I thought what the Hell.

The question this person finally asked what was the point to all my efforts? I had already told him that it has been years since I made a serious effort to have anything professionally published. He knew enough about blogging to understand that the vast majority of these websites go completely unnoticed by the wider world. My usual, and largely true answer is that I use blogging as a way to blow off steam and frustration. But there is a deeper answer that you can probably guess.

At some point I intend begin recording all my rants and various attempts at fiction onto some sort of permanent storage. The idea being that when I finally head off into oblivion my kids and their kids will have a record of my thoughts. While in no way comparable to the massive ancient Egyptian monuments left by the pharaohs, there is more than a little bit of vanity associated with my intentions. Then again, I like the idea of imagining what one of my descendants one-hundred years or more from now would make of my ravings. This is assuming humans do not bring about a planetary environmental collapse in the next several decades, civilization destroying pandemic, or just go out with a good old fashioned nuclear war.

This train of thought naturally leads me to speculate on the ultimate way to be remembered. As our technology has advanced the ways to recording our existence has become more numerous and sophisticated. Making a video recording of ourselves is so easy these days we're on the other end of Clarke's Law that says, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Just image Joe and Jane Smith from the early twentieth century seeing a commonplace video recording of a kid's birthday party. They may not run away in fear from the magic picture box, but they would have absolutely no idea what to make of it.

While the technology is still decades, if not centuries away, I can see people making recordings of their consciousness that would be fully interactive with anyone accessing them. This brings to mind the question would such consciousness snapshots be sentient beings deserving of human rights and protections? Or would our descendants consider them nothing but more sophisticated versions of home movies no one wants to see?

A Fun Filled Examination of Closed Time Loops

One of the easiest and most abused science fiction story concepts is the one where some fool filled with good intentions goes back in time in an attempt to stop a terrible crime or prevent a tragedy. During the course of these temporal adventures the main character more than likely does something stupid causing events to unfold much worse that in the original timeline. This usually leaves two possibilities for the conclusion of the story. The main character will again use whatever device that allowed him or her to time travel and attempt to correct the alteration in the timeline returning events to how they originality unfolded. Or, return to their original temporal point and somehow learn to live with the alterations in the flow of events.

Needless to say, so many of these types of stories have been written over the decades that they have become extremely derivative of each other that originality is next to impossible. Especially to a jaded science fiction type like myself whose read more time travel stories that I can remember.

As time travel stories go I'm more of the Terminator/Star Trek/Doctor Who type but I've got to admit that for a short time my wife got me interested in the Starz movie channel series based on the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon. Yes, those books and the series fit firmly in the categories of female romance/adventure but hear me out, because after binge watching seasons one and two I'm going to get metaphysical on the prospects of some time traveler changing history.

Backtracking for those who don't know, the Outlander books and television series centers on the female character Claire Randal who while visiting Scotland in 1945 is “magically” transported back to 1743 when she steps through a large stone. Without getting bogged down into the details at first Claire gets bounced around for awhile learning the ways of 18th century Scotland. What aids Claire in being accepted-- sort of-- by the locals is the fact that she was a combat nurse during the Second World War and is viewed by them as having close to magical healing powers far outstripping the doctors of that time.

Where things get titillating for Claire, and for certain members of the viewing audience, is when she hooks up with a Scottish dude of that time named Jamie Fraser. Given the nature of these books/television series sparks soon fly between Claire and Jamie with the birds and bees stuff getting fairly graphic, soft porn to some extent. I also have to mention part of the drama of the story revolves around the fact that Claire is married to a fairly decent guy who is back in the twentieth century and has no freaking idea what happened to his wife. This is where the story goes full female bodice-ripping romance because of the tension between Claire's conflicting desires to return to her twentieth century husband or stay with the hunky kilt wearing action hero.

The character of Jamie Fraser is a Scottish patriot and is all for pulling a William Wallace/Braveheart on the obnoxious English. But Claire is from the future and knows the growing rebellion will ultimately end disastrously at the Battle of Culloden. So Claire, deeply in love with Jamie, tells him what will happen even though this being 18th century Europe such ravings would almost certainly have caused her to be thrown into whatever passed as an insane asylum or burned as a witch. Jamie, being in love with Claire and impossibly open-minded for someone of that period, believes his lover's warning of impending doom and they begin working to alter the circumstances of the coming battle.

The overall crux of the story, at least in season one and two of the series, involves how the Scots are getting tried of being dominated by the English. With rebellion in the air the Scots are supporting Prince Charles Stuart's claim to the English and Scottish throne. Prince Charles Stuart, also known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”, is a descendant of the last Catholic king of England, James II.

It is during the second season we are introduced to the doofus Prince Charles who is in France with his advisers looking to find ways to finance and them execute their scheme to take the throne of England by force. Which is a big task since Prince Charles is an idiot and there are other factors working to undermine the building Scottish rebellion.

While born in exile, Bonnie Prince Charlie was raised to sit on the English thrown. Reports suggest he was a dashing figure who was athletic, charismatic, and supremely confident. All that fine breeding just made him an empty suit with delusions of grandeur. For those who can't tell, no I don't like the privileged chump. He reminds me way too much of someone in this day and age.

As far as the ability to lead and organize a military campaign was concerned, he was worse than just incompetent. Despite his unassailable confidence in himself, objective observers say his intellectual ability was mediocre at best. He had no discernible tactical nor strategic vision on how to achieve his goals. Top it all off this example that inbreeding is still wrong whether it's done by white trash or rich aristocratic snobs, the Bonnie Prince was indifferent to the pragmatic issues of military logistics and how terrain effects the execution of a battle plan. Its been said many times anyone can play at being Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or General Patton. But what really wins battles is the ability to quickly bring enough beans and bullets to the theater of operations to overwhelm the enemy. And as far as terrain is concerned, any commander has to understand that while war has been compared to chess it's more the three dimensional kind.

Just to throw salt on this 18^th century Scottish wound, it was recorded that Bonnie Prince Charlie was actually quite indecisive when the shit hit the fan. His usual habit was to walk away when things got tough leaving his subordinates to either sink or swim on their own.

Right from the start Bonnie Prince Charlies' campaign seemed hapless. When a French warship dropped him on a desolate beach in western Scotland in August of 1745 he was accompanied by just seven supporters with little to nothing in the way of weapons or money. A second French ship, which was carrying a small amount of troops, weapons, and money was intercepted by an English vessel and forced to turn back. As the weeks and months passed instead of a solid strategic plan coming together, his generals and advisers couldn't get along.

It wasn't all stupidity and epic defeat, somehow the rebellious Scots were successful enough to launch and overland invasion of England coming within a hundred miles or so from London. Instead of pressing the advantage though, they got nervous and retreated back into Scotland with a well trained and excellently lead English army in hot pursuit.

On the eve of what became known as the Battle of Culloden, the rebellious Scots, called Jacobites by the way, located the encamped English forces and decided to launch a nighttime assault on their position. Such attacks require highly trained troops and precise coordination among leaders, something the Scots were severely lacking to say the least. While it's not my intention to offend anyone, all things being equal the Scots really didn't have a coherent army. They were into the idea that motivated individuals could take on a disciplined army and win just because God or some ill-conceived abstract principle was on their side. Hey, such attitudes can work until the stronger, more disciplined, and better equipped force gets its act together.

The planned night attack on the English encampment began to fall apart almost immediately when one of the leading Scottish generals realized the operation was going sideways causing him to turn his troops around. The big mistake here was that he didn't tell the other group of Scottish forces causing both segments to bump around all night. By morning Scottish forces were exhausted and hungry but there was no place to sleep but the ground and food was nonexistent except what could be begged or stolen from nearby farms and villages.

Spoiled doofus, I mean Bonnie Prince Charles wanted to proceed with the operation as a daytime attack. Something anyone with a couple of extra brains cells in his group said was a really bad idea. Well, Charlie got his way and except for a brief few minutes when the first line of the English forces were breached, strictly by chance not planning, the Scots got their asses handed to them. With this defeat the idea of an independent Scotland was killed until a couple of years ago. Even then the peaceful referendum was defeated and Scotland and England remain a more or less an unhappy couple resigned to a loveless marriage.

Sidestepping back into the Outlander series and the final disposition of Jamie and Claire for those who might be interested. With the coming Battle of Culloden a certified clusterfrak in the making, Jamie forces Claire to return to the twentieth century by again stepping through the magical rock that first brought her. This is where I get off my military history train and slightly ridiculous television show explanations and get back on point about time travel.

As far as I can tell by reading and watching educational documentaries all the big theoretical physicists agree time travel on anything but a submicroscopic scale is impossible. What I don't understand though, and what keeps hopes of time travel alive for those interested in maybe asking Cleopatra for a date is that the equations for time that Einstein developed for his theory of General Relativity say it could easily flow both backwards or forward. Seemingly suggesting a mechanism could be engineered that would allow, say a talking dog and a young kid, to build a Wayback machine. So for shits and giggles lets speculate that some future Einstein, super genius talking dog, advanced artificial intelligence software, or space alien figures out a way. This now brings up the contentious and nightmarish possibility of screwing with the timeline.

Serious nerd side note here, but that's really the only reason I decided to watch Outlander with my wife. Well there is the fact that the lady playing Claire is smoking hot and did I mention the near soft porn aspect of the show?

 

Like Marty McFly made everyone understand in the Back to the Future movies, change the course of events and people in the future could literally vanish from existence. On that same vein, change the course of events and you alter the outcome of wars and other types of historical occurrences. The one thing from both Star Trek and Stargate that makes sense in a metaphysical sort of way is that no one should be able to play God with existence. In Star Trek the guys and gals from Starfleet wisely understand you simply don't go that route...most of the time. As for Stargate, well there are more than enough episodes where the bumbling Air Force fools did play with the timeline and got screwed in the process.

Here is where I put on my layman's history hat and suggest there might be another factor that prevents any hypothetical time traveler from altering history. Pulling from both the actual history of the Jacobite Rebellion/Bonnie Prince Charlie escapades and the scenario offered by the Outlander television series, anyone wanting to change history would have to fight some pretty strong preconceived notions and societal norms. Both Jamie and Claire worked hard to alter the chain of events leading to the Culloden disaster but failed miserably.

While I am in no way a military history expert it does seem to me that the strongest armies, in this case being the English forces fighting the rebellious Scots, almost always win. Yes, Vietnam is the exception that immediately comes to mind but geopolitical factors prevented the United States from exerting its full strength in that conflict. Terrain was also a factor and it was overwhelmingly on the side of the North Vietnamese and Vietcong. Looking at the American Civil War while the South scored some early and impressive wins, once the Union forces got fully organized the Confederacy was thankfully defeated and ground down to dust.

Could the Jacobite Rebellion and the Confederacy pulled an upset by an early win? The Scots had their chance when they were only a hundred miles or so from London. And Robert E. Lee certainly had his chance for a quick victory at Antietam and later at Gettysburg but was repulsed both times. It would seem that they could have but I simply don't know enough to be sure. This goes back to the real winners of battles, logistics and knowledge of how to use the available terrain to your advantage. I have some nebulous idea that something would have happened or developed that would have prevented either of them from achieving their goals.

From what I have read, the one event that does seem to have been decided purely by chance was the Battle of Midway. Without digressing into another bout of military history the way I understand it U.S. Navy planes caught the Japanese fleet off guard as their aircraft were on the carriers being fueled and loaded with bombs. From that point on, Japan was never able to mount a major offensive operation. From what I've read the Battle of Midway has been war gamed many times over the decades with the real life outcome not the usual result. But this brings us back to my original idea, it might have taken several years but the industrial strength of the United States would have eventually defeated the resource poor Japan. Yes, I'm including the eventually development of the atomic bomb and its use in that assessment.

What this all boils down to is the eternal debate about determinism and free will. Do we as individuals have any real choice in our actions or are we just puppets playing out a story set in stone? That debate has gone on for thousands of years and runs the full scope from purely philosophical to involving physics. I frankly lean towards the side of determinism, with maybe room for real choice on the strictly personal level. That being whether or not I order pizza for lunch today or go get a nice tuna sub.

What would be totally cool though, is if some intrepid time traveler somehow reads this rambling rant and decides to drop by and tell me what they believe from his or her own era. I promise I won't screw with the timeline by telling anyone else. Come by early enough and I'll buy lunch for us both.

Wasted Weekend

Been one of those weekends where I wasn't exactly sick but doing anything requiring movement or any real thinking was just to much trouble. Spent all day Saturday and most of today laying on the living room floor as my wife and daughter binge watched Game of Thrones reruns.  See, my fourteen year old daughter has just within the the last two weekends become interested in the show and my wife talked her into watching the entire series while giving a running commentary on the characters and situations.

Why did I just lay on the floor while my wife and daughter watched a show I don't have much interest in? Good question, but the only possible answer I can give is that while I felt terrible being cooped up in the bedroom just didn't appeal to me. Another reason could be that my wife gives the most amazing lectures on the fictional families and history of that show. And to think she calls me a nerd over what I know about Star Trek.

Whatever the case, somehow I am going to have to drag my sorry ass to work tonight. I've got too much to do and like I said, I don't think I'm really all that sick. Here is some tropical music to enjoy.    

Lawn Care Ruminations

Sunday morning began with me looking out my kitchen window and struggling to convince myself that my backyard didn't need cutting. Usually this early in the summer I can get away with cutting one yard a weekend and I did the back just last Sunday. Unfortunately something is different this year, not sure if it's the heavier rainfall we've had but as I walked outside on my deck to take a closer look, it was apparent that if I didn't cut the backyard I'd have a jungle the following weekend. A further mystery is the fact that except for a few dandelions, my front yard didn't need to be cut although its already been two weeks it was mowed.

So like a good suburban drone I inserted the headphones attached to my MP3 player into my ears, cranked up the mower, and proceeded walk up and down my yard pushing a ridiculous device that I am sure will be a joke to future generations. I'm sure climate change and simple innovation will eventually make gas powered lawnmowers antiquated relics. Battery powered lawnmowers are already for sale and if I had five hundred dollars I could risk on such a new technology, I'd already have bought one just so I would not have to deal with the frustration of their gas powered counterparts. I know the problems I've had with lawnmowers are from a lack of proper care on my part, but I'll be damned those things weren't as complicated back when I pushed my Granddad's around the neighborhood to earn a few bucks cutting other peoples' grass.

Ideally, and call me insane, I'd like to see the demise of the modern subdivision and have them replaced with a more communal lifestyle. I've heard of a few places like that already exist, it's not an apartment nor condo situation because these new neighborhoods are made up of individual, freestanding family homes but the green spaces have a more open, park-like feel. The homes in these new types of neighborhoods are also much smaller than the Mcmansions many Americans have come to believe are rights enshrined in the Constitution. That right there will have some running off screaming socialism but if I could buy into such a place go ahead and start addressing me as comrade. 

Yes, this means lawn care of the grounds would be relegated down to a contractor or in the future, battery powered robots that would perform their duties without human interaction. Yes, all this pondering is just me whining about having to take care of something I bought back when I was too stupid to realize how demanding lawn care could be.

All told it only took me forty-five minutes to cut the backyard and the small segment on the other side of the fence. Yes, I did come away with a small feeling of accomplishment. Both the backyard and side yard looked better but any satisfaction was short lived, because as I kicked back with a cold soda I realized that I will most certainly have to do the same damn thing next weekend.

It has been said that the definition of insanity is to perform the same act over and over again expecting a different result. How lawn care plays into that idea I'll leave that to each individual to decide. I'm sure everyone can already guess where I fall on that answer.

Wandering Toes: An all too Brief Escape

Broke away from the house yesterday and made an all too brief escape to my nearest happy place. The Mount Pleasant Waterfront Park and Pier truly meets all my criteria as a location to recharge my mental batteries. While family and homeowner obligations are the main reason I can't escape the suburban hellhole where I live on a more routine basis, quite frankly the drive down from Columbia on I-26 is often a pain in the ass. When I-26 was built I believe the traffic volume was smaller than what is normal today and because of the increased load both the east and west segments can become easily clogged by the slightest accident or a few bad drivers. Several times over the years trips down to the Charleston area, or going back home, were ruined by Interstate traffic jam delays than stretched the normal ninety minute to two hour trip to a three or four hour feat of endurance.    

As I sat on one of the park's benches sipping my coffee and pondering the fate of the universe this curious looking ship cruised by heading for the nearby docks. While the decks are clearly loaded down, I had to assume the containers on the front end were empty since the bow was riding so high in the water. What puzzled me was that the stern was riding so low giving me the impression that the white containers might be full. I know next to nothing about freighters but to me it made the ship look unstable.     

One of the more sad accomplishments of Facebook was that it has publicized the existence of people who believe in the "chem-trail conspiracy" involving the spraying of nefarious chemicals on an unsuspecting public for experimentation or even mind control. Ignoring the utter paranoid insanity of the basic premise for a moment, the logistics of producing these chemicals, then the transport, and deployment aboard thousands of aircraft made to look like passenger planes makes the UFO, MIB, Illuminati, and Bigfoot people seem within the realm of reason. Whatever the case, if there were any Chem-trail people in Charleston yesterday morning they would have been running for cover because the beautiful blue sky was being constantly cross-crossed by jets producing these neat trails caused by the heat of their engines making the atmospheric water vapor condense.       

Wanted to hit a pub on nearby Sullivan's Island but the tourist hordes had already overrun the place to the point it wasn't worth the effort. Instead I cruised down to Fort Moultrie where a bunch of A-hole Citadel cadets started the Civil War back in 1861. I've never bought the propaganda that the Civil War was about "states rights", tariffs, or opposing the tyranny of the Federal government. Boil away all the crap and it was about rich white people whose fortunes were built and maintained by the fact they kept other human being in bondage.     

Correct me if I'm wrong but the lighthouse in the distance is the Morris Island lighthouse situated on the south end of entrance to Charleston Harbor. Despite my distaste of many thing associated with South Carolina, namely its ignorance and stunted politics, there are a number of interesting places I would love to visit, that lighthouse being one.  Since the local pubs and bars were all too busy I made a quick stop by a fast food joint for lunch and hit the road for home.Thankfully, except for one minor accident that slowed me down three or four minutes my drive back to Columbia was just as quick as the one going down. It was made even better by the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcasts I downloaded onto my MP3 player. It's a science show that make its easy to keep up with all the advances we are seeing on a daily basis. It's early Sunday morning now and as I tried to type in my usual substandard drivel, I've had to make stops to clean up cat puke, give a diabetic dog his shot after handing feeding him, and prep the recently installed carpet for cleaning after discovering a huge pee spot that had literally soaked a five-inch in diameter section. There is no way in hell my wife would let me make another run down to Charleston next weekend so I'll have to settle for watching my Blu-Ray copy of Rogue One when it arrives.   

Idle Thoughts While Sitting in a Parking Lot

The first car I could technically call my own was an austere Gremlin produced by the now defunct America Motors Corporation. For those too young the Gremlin was an American subcompact-sized economy car produced during the 1970's whose visual appearance was unlike any other vehicles made during that era, in other words most people considered the model quite ugly. Despite its odd appearance, its chief attributes was that it was a cheap, dependable car that got exceedingly good gas mileage, even by today's standards. I got my Gremlin from my grandfather, it was the car he drove to work and when he retired it was passed to me. I don't remember what year the car was made but by the time I began driving it back and forth to school the blue color of the paint job had long since faded to the point it actually had more of a gray tint.

I can't say for sure but I believe the color change was the result of exposure to the chemicals in the air near the paper mill my grandfather worked. Yes I've asked the same question you might now be thinking, if these diluted chemicals had such an effect on the paint job of a car it's an open question as to what they might do to living things. All I can say is that it's a longstanding joke that the paper mill allows my hometown to be smelled long before you actually saw the sign indicating the city limit. At least the color change allowed the outside body to match the interior which was either plastic, in the case of the dashboard, and the vinyl seats.

My Gremlin was about as basic a model as it could come since it didn't have air conditioning and the radio was only able to pick up the AM dial, drawbacks that completely stupefied my son to the point that he once told me he would have rather gone without driving to school. Such were the times because I remember my little car was not the only basic and ramshackle model parked around the high school. The vehicles of the student body consisted of numerous beat up trucks and dilapidated cars that collectively rattled and coughed something akin to a mechanical symphony in the afternoon as we all left for the day.

Sure, there were a few exception like the kids whose parents were wealthy enough to buy them one of the flashy sports cars like the Pontiac Trans Am or Chevy Camaro. And yes, such individuals seemed genetically programmed for the need to make an overt displays of their expensive transportation by either rattling any nearby windows with the sound from their amplified car stereo or producing as large a cloud of dust as possible as they peeled out of the gravel parking lot. On a side note, several years after I graduated from high school, I bought Jane Goodall's first book on her experience observing the behavior of chimpanzees in the wild and was stunned at how similar human behavior could be compared to our hairier and supposedly less evolved cousins.

Years later after finishing up my army enlistment I enrolled in the local community college and quickly noticed that car ownership standards among the students had gone up considerably. For those newly graduated high school students almost all of them drove cars that at best were just a few years old and in great condition. There was also a higher percentage of rich obnoxious a-holes who regularly showed off the perks of being born into a family where daddy, and maybe mom was well, was a doctor, lawyer, or some other high-salary type. The sad fact was that if there was a beat economy car in the college parking lot it probably driven by one of the single moms desperately trying to hold together her sanity while pursuing an education and take care of her kids. Playing the full disclosure card here, my Gremlin had long since passed on while I drove a 1984 Chevy Camaro. Its purchase, made after graduation but before going in the army was severely problematic but, like they say, that is water that had long since passed under the bridge and made it to the ocean.

The funny thing about all those bright and shiny expensive cars rich mommies and daddies had bought their newly minted high school graduates was that as the days and weeks passed after the start of a new semester, they not so slowly disappeared from the college parking lot. About the same time it was not uncommon to see one of these privileged offspring working the counter at one of the numerous fast food places or retail shops in the general area. In fact early one semester a young girl fresh out of high school began asking me about questions about our community college before class. She wanted to know simple things like which instructors were hard and which were the ones that would grade on a curb.

At the time I was around twenty-five years old and found her rather annoying since she was at best eighteen. During her questions she made the statement that her dad had given her choice of returning to school or getting a job. Not an unreasonable demand from her dad, but when she said that if things didn't go well in college her other option was just to get married. It was then that I suddenly remembered I desperately had to go to the restroom and didn't return until after class had started. Thankfully, my seat next the young girl had long since been taken my another person. Several months later, I saw that same girl pregnant and working one of those sunglasses stands inside the old Myrtle Beach mall.

Luckily for me my quota of common sense, or stupid luck, was rather high during that period of my life and I never did get entangled with any young nymphets looking for a meal ticket and a baby daddy.

Maybe it's just late middle age screwing with the wiring in my brain but those memories and many others came flooding back to me recently as I waited in the my daughter's high school parking lot. It seems suburban affluence has spread its decadent tendrils down to that level now. The vehicles in the student body parking lot are a remarkable collection expensive cars with at least a dozen redneck super trucks that belch enough black smoke when running to kill any nearby lifeforms. These trucks, with an suspension that raises them so high it takes a step ladder to reach up and open the door, are literal “screw the planet” statements every time those drivers cause thick plums of black smoke to come out of the exhausts. Then there are about the same number of sports cars, including several BMW's, Audi's, and more than a few Toyota Priuses complete with ecologically minded bumper stickers. The most outrageous car though has to go to the kid driving a Chevy Corvette. He comes out of the school everyday with an entourage of male and female admirers swarming around him like joyous flies. Given his swagger and overall good looks it seems a good bet someone like him will drift towards politics.

I've looked for someone driving a modern version of my old Gremlin at my daughter's high school. I have to admit to a certain amount of melancholy to the fact that I really don't see anyone that even comes close to fitting that niche. The unbridled affluence shown by these kids is nauseating in a subtle way. It makes me feel like a bit of a dinosaur surrounded by swift and more intelligent mammals.

About the only solace I can find in this situation is the belief that events far larger than the petty wants of American teenagers will forcefully insert a degree of reason into what cars parents can afford for their driving age kids. Yes, I know I'm just becoming a curmudgeon but in all honesty there is no teenager in the United States that needs to drive a damn Corvette to school. The little spoiled twits need something to aspire to that will force them to get a real education and then a job.