Virginia

Virginia 7-IV-21–9-2-99. We miss you.

From An Old Student

Truck vs. Smartcar accident. The trucks won, not surprisingly.

What Has He Got In His Pocketses?

This meme has been going around again, and I had the camera available this time so here is what I tote around every day.

Wallet, Opinel knife, keys, flash drives, S&W M1917 chambered in .45 ACP.

Now, THIS is a Bad Idea

Malley’s is a Cleveland Tradition, but, this is SERIOUS pancreas abuse.

Sappy Cat Blogging

It’s Friday, so it’s time for Sappy Cat Blogging!

Oh For Pity’s Sake!

I’m a private person.  I try to keep a wall between my work colleagues and my friends, some cross over, but on the whole I like to keep things separate.  I’m thankful, though, that I don’t have to go through the humiliating bullshit of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, A.K.A. institutionalized  hypocrisy.  To fully comply with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you have to lie.   Even if you’re private and close mouthed, you have to lie.  Either you have to make up a partner or deny one that exists, and can’t even say “We went out for breakfast at Big Al’s”.  That’s nonsense, that’s humiliating, that’s soul destroying and that’s ultimately unnecessary.

Some commenters mention the need for segregated housing, so that people who might be attracted to one another aren’t rooming together (an abrigment of a comment on LabRat’s post.)  That seems like a rationalization, for keeping way from teh ghey cooties, but that’s another matter.  I lived in co-ed housing in college.  Even the bathrooms were coed–not officially, but practically.  Some parents worried that this would turn the dorm into a hotbed (heh) of unbridled sexuality.

Frankly, living in close proximity to people for any length of time does more to kill sexual attraction than it does to promote it.  It’s really hard to romanticize the beautiful young woman when she’s drunk and pukes on your wingtips (I speak from experience.)  I can guess it’s hard to look with longing at the young man who decides to sit atop the stall wall to defecate (referred to as the “Hiroshima shit”.  It was worse after Mexican night  Ew.)

When you live in close proximity to other humans you need to treat people with consideration and mutual respect.  You need some more tolerance in larger groups, but unless you’re off living by yourself, you gotta learn to play well with others.  People need to follow the Wheaton Rule (Don’t be a dick).  If service members act inappropriately, they need to deal with the consequences of their actions.   There are gay people serving honourably now, and they have served honourably in the past.   Let them do their jobs with as little chickenshit as possible.
Between Labrat, Tam, JayG and Marko, I really didn’t need to say anything.   It does bother me, I tend to be conservative, but I’d rather not have a side order of religion with my politics.  I’m not a big fan of Mr. Obama’s policies, but getting rid of DADT is the right thing to do, and there is no reason to let the morality of bronze-age middle eastern nomads make policy in the XXI century.

Proxy

I’m having my papers updated.  Will, durable power of attorney, durable power of attorney for health care, the lot.  One of the things I learned early as a forensic person is death comes when you least expect it.  “Because I could not stop for death, he  kindly stopped for me…” and all that.  There you are, minding your own business, crossing Euclid Avenue and my goodness, where did that semi come from?

The will was easy, it’s the durable power of attorneys that made me pause.  And I chose a lot of simple options.  I could, for example, have made the cats beneficiaries, or set up a pet trust, or something.  The simplest was to mention them to my executor, and tell him to make sure they’re housed and fed.  He’s a cat guy, that’s not a worry.

But the durable power of attorney for health care, that’s kind of a poser.  I have spoken to mine, and he knows my values, and my take on medical futility.  I trust him to carry out my wishes.  This story in the NYT was apropos.  The daughter carried out her father’s wishes.  He made them known at the time of admission.  The key quote is here:

I suppose my father’s decision was a mistake. But it was his mistake to make, not mine. My role was to support my father, no matter what, and to tell the truth, no matter how hard.

It’s not easy sometimes.

By the way, if anyone can put me in touch with an Ohio  attorney that is experienced in creating a firearms trust that’ll keep ATF happy, drop me a line in the comments.

Sappy Cat Blogging

Quebecois cat vs. black bear.  The bear did leave, albeit with the garbage.  But the cat is still in one piece.  That’s a win.

Bird Watching

The RAF has changed a bit since 1940, eh what?

Why Is A Locomotive Like A Cell Phone

Both knit the country together, and both are owned by the railroads.  For most of human history, people stayed fairly close to home.  Noon was whenever the sun was directly overhead, and when the fastest thing was a galloping horse, you didn’t have to worry about things like time zones and schedules.  The trains came in the 1830s, and things really began to change.  Oh, factory workers were called to in and dismissed by a whistle, but really, on time was a pretty nebulous concept.

But the rails spread, from Baltimore in the east, with a heavy concentration in the northeast and in 1869 linking the east and west coasts at Promontory Point.  With trains come schedules.  Tighter schedules than the canal boats needed.  Trains run both ways on the tracks.  Either you do what the Pennsylvania and New York Central did, putting in four tracks, high and low speed for each direction OR you put in passing sidings and allow the trains to go both directions on one track.  In the long run, that’s cheaper, but you have to have enough sidings and good enough control to keep the trains from running into one another.

Although there is Centralized Traffic Control, the dispatcher will still allow a train crew to have “track and time”.  The switches are manually controlled and the guys on the ground shuffle the cars onto and off of the sidings.  Again, time and communication are essential.  The main has to be shut down while this is going on, and the main has to be cleared as soon as possible.  The orders and changes need to be communicated.

When time was, it was done via telegraph wires.  If you look at old tracks there are still lots and lots of communication wires along the right of way.  Now, it’s radio communication.  But the railroads still have the rights of way and the wires.  This explains why Sprint, for example, was owned by the Southern Pacific.

Sprint is the mobile carrier for my uni.  They have package deals, and I recently took my five-year-old phone and tried to upgrade it, one with Wi-Fi capability and music, so I only have to carry one thing around.  I first got a Blackberry 8310, which was quite nice, but the phone will not work with the University’s servers.  So I called the Sprint rep, and he sent me a PalmPre.  Again a nice thing, I like the look, but the phone will not work with the University’s servers.  Not only will it not activate, the automated system told me I was a shmuck and my mother dressed me funny.  I feel like I’m trapped in a Rodney Dangerfield movie.