Thruster Reversers

The thrust reversers. According to the pilot coming over the loud speaker, that was the culprit keeping our plane on the ground in Salt Lake City. Now, I'm no pilot, but my emotional state just overpowered my sense of safety and I thought, 'We are planning to reach DIA by flying FOREward so I fail to see the importance of thrust REVERSERS working properly'. This was, until I realized that those particular items are employed not during flight, but in landing and were a key component in stopping the airplane before it would skid along the runway and slam into the terminal building, maiming any number of innocent travelers and exploding in a blaze of...whatever. I now have a new appreciation for two things: the phrase 'airline terminal' and, you guessed it--thrust reversers. The pilot on the intercom said something about experimental isolation and disengagement of these thrust reversers and that the plane's engines would be tagged with red tape by the ground crew, and that substitutional methods of landing would be employed upon our arrival at Denver. Based on my recent considerations, this was a barely acceptable proposition but, since my job was simply to fasten my seat belt and place my tray table in its upright position, there wasn't much I could do save nod my head in concurrence and feign placidity of spirit.

There's no big plot twist to this entry. We made it to DIA without incident. Our airplane landed and stopped completely intact and as expected. The red tape must have worked.

Buying Dinner with Friends

While visiting my friends in Dallas last weekend, there was one setting in which I realized I was truly among an adult group, (though I never thought I'd say that about this particular group). During dinners out, at some point, one person would wave their hand, rise from their seat, or make some other important gesture and announce that "It's on me" or "I'll take care of dinner". This is a statement of (at least the benefactor's) apparent arrival at adulthood. For this is what adults do, the having of serious phone conversations, the owning of homes, the buying of their friends' dinners. This act is interesting on a number of levels.

In one way, it is a statement of financial arrival. "I have the means through which to purchase not only my meal, but yours, and I will do so." A declaration of blessing and security spread out before us on the table.

It is also at once a fulfillment of the American need for immediate gratification: "The unsavory portion of this meal is no longer my responsibility. I can relax and enjoy my coffee" and a meditation in denying it, a certain fasting against such a mindset, as it also infers the benevolent expectation of happy reciprocity at some point in the future.

Finally, buying dinner proclaims a strong sense of permanence regarding the people involved. I think that's my favorite part of it. In many cultures today, sharing a meal is a declaration of deep trust and friendship. Not so true in the United States of our Americas, but I'd like to be an agent of change regarding that. As soon as I get some money.

Thanks to all you who bought my dinner last weekend. Your time is coming. All things to those who wait...

Wisdom from the Weekend

I just returned from a nice little weekend hanging with some
of my best friends in the world. Every now and then, we all
converge upon a certain secret location and reflect on life
and cause a measured level of havoc during the process. I
write this sitting in the airport leaning against some weird
"cell phone-plug-in-for-this-[fill in the blank]-must-have-
service" kiosk.

The plane is late. The group still waiting for their plane
and occupying my gate, the LaGuardia crowd, is getting restless.
There is a measure of trouncing and hoof stamping among the
pilgrims. Conglomerate, laptop-toting cows in a pen. Time to
check out of the scene and reflect...

There is never an occasion of intersection with my friends that
I do not gain a substantial litany of new ruminations, accumulat-
ed wisdom, and other considerations. There is a veritable faucet
of "outside the box" conversation that occurs.

So, after a time of meditation, low-level levitation and reflection,
I respectfully submit, for your consideration, the following tid-
bits of wisdom, misconstruences and misspeelings and potential
reality as seen through my friends, long may they roam and procreate...
or at least go through the motions of such.


I have deemed the following list the "20 Epiphanies":

1-Forks do not fling themselves.
2-Slobber is an unfortunate by-product of dogs and some women.
3-That 'Scream' mask is the scariest piece of vinyl I've ever seen.
What is it about that thing?!
4-We all own too much stuff.
5-We all spend whatever we've got.
6-The Mayan calendar stops in the year 2012. In a related story,
there is supposed to be a second killer asteroid heading for us right
now. We thrive largely due to a constant informational barrage of
potential disasters and misfortune on a global scale. Why is that?
7-Swimming pools have a maximum density.
The equation is as follows: (F+x) + (By)/PV. This equation is absolute.
8-Sometimes in life the wires seem invisible. Sometimes they are
painfully obvious. Either way, they're there.
9-Silly string is.
10.Silly putty isn't.
11-There should be a direct correlation between what we say and how
much time we have to say it.
12-If the luggage bag doesn't fit in the overhead compartment, push
harder.
13-"Feathering" the clutch is not the answer for obtaining more power.
14-Planet Earth is the coolest series ever on TV, aside from the
collected works of Matt Groening, which is, without peer,the most
anthropologically important documentation of our American culture...
for better or worse.
15-When they're not there, they're there.
16-Or they're at the other place.
17-The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily consistent with
that of the ownership and management of the Parent Company.
18-No one knows who comprises the Parent Company, though there are
rumors.
19-It is imperative that we respond to our world by being the Hands
and Feet of God. We must wash ourselves often and thoroughly. Behind
the ears, too.
20-Some houses are built with straw, and some with bricks, but you
can also build houses with wooden palettes. And they're pretty good
ones, all told. I guess you can build them with tumble weeds, too.

There. The 20 Epiphanies. Though they were born of the weekend and
its specific activities, I encourage you to experiment with their
breadth, and consider applying them to your larger life in such areas
as relationships, Faith, care of domestic animals and children, business
and financial decisions, sex, and car maintanence.

Being Fired and Comfort Food

Comfort food is really important to me, especially these days, since I'm in that aforementioned and unenviable state of (un)employment. See earlier blog entry. It's a big part of my coping structure. That, and speaking Mandalese to inanimate objects.

Three related comments:
Turley's is a little local restaurant in town. It's the best comfort food in the world.

I'm out of Raisin Bran again.

It takes a LOT of time to look for a job...

Oopses and Ferrets

That reminds me---I recently became an unwilling participant in the inevitable dark side of the employment cycle. Yes, I got fired. Never been fired before. A total shock. It's kinda weird...like those 'naked' dreams where you're at an intersection and realize you're...well...naked. It's also a little like having a ferret as a pet, except there's LESS responsibility, not more. Ferrets require a lot of time and energy. They can't be in direct sunlight for long, and they, like, really hate the cold. I kept my ferret, Sigmund, in a cage by the window for a while, then I learned they hate the cold and it was February when I realized that, which was a little too late and, at that point, our relationship was forever changed until one day, for no apparent reason, I let it out of its cage and it didn't go anywhere--it just sat there on the window sill wondering what to do with the heightened sense of freedom. There's the parallel, I guess. But its food was in its cage, as was its water and that little chew toy. Ferrets like chew toys, just like dogs and alligators do…most of them.

Outstanding quotes from White Noise

Some memorable quotes from the wonderful novel White Noise by Don DeLillo:

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation. (31)

There were no addresses. Her friends had phone numbers only, a race of people with seven-bit analog consciousness. (41)

Television is just another name for junk mail. (50)

"You know what's in my medicine chest. What secrets are left?" (62)

People have no tolerance for you particular hardship unless you know how to entertain them with it. (65)

He wore his camouflage jacket and cap, an outfit with complex meaning for him, at fourteen, struggling to grow and to escape notice simultaneously... (109)

Society is set up in a way that it's the poor and uneducated that suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters. (114)

I feel sad for people and the queer part we play in our own disasters. (126)

"I'd like to lose interest in myself. Is there any chance of that happening?" (152)

A California think tank says the next world war may be fought over salt. (226)

There was a pause like a missing tick in eternity. (232)

Murray said it was possible to be homesick for a place even when you're there. (257)

It's all corporate tie-in. The marketing, the fear, the disease...you can't have one without the other. (264)

This must be how people escape the pull of the earth-the gravitational leaf-flutter that brings us hourly closer to dying. Simply stop obeying. Steal, instead of buy. Shoot,instead of talk. (302)

"The nonbelievers need the believers. They are desperate to have someone believe." (318)

Finding and Losing and Pineapples

I think that, no matter your particular perspective on faith, this is a cool story, and worthy of consideration and such. Peace and pineapples, Clint

Otto Koning was a missionary in New Guinea. He worked among a native tribe that had known only their village ways. One of those village ways was stealing from others.

When Otto arrived and moved into a hut, the natives often came by to visit. He would notice that after the natives left the missionary's home, various household items had disappeared, and he would often see these items again when he went into the natives' village.

It goes that Otto had a small garden outside his hut. The only fruit he could grow on the island was pineapples. Otto loved pineapples, and he took much pride in the pineapples he was able to grow. However, whenever they finally began to ripen, the natives would always steal them. He could never keep a ripe pineapple for himself. This was a frustration, and he became angry with the natives. All during the seven-year period in which this took place, Otto continued to serve and preach to these natives, but he never had one native come to the faith.

Understandably, the more the natives stole, the angrier Otto became. He took a furlough to the United States and attended a conference on personal rights. At this conference, he discovered that he was frustrated over this situation because he had taken personal ownership of his pineapple garden. So, after much soul searching, he released his selfishness about his garden and ceremoniously gave it to God.

When Otto gave his garden to God, he no longer got angry and was free from worry. What was more interesting is that when the natives took fruit for themselves, they started bringing him fruit, as well.

The light came on one day when a native said to him, "You no longer get angry when we take what we need from the garden. You must have become a Christian, Otto. We always wondered if we would ever meet a Christian."

by Os Hillman, Nov. 24, 2006

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. - Matthew 10:39

Funny, huh? Anybody want a pineapple?
:)