A Topic to consider

With Brians schedule hopefully becoming less crazy I have decided to come up with a few interesting ideas for conversation.

1) What is one aspect of our society you would like to see go away

2) What is one aspect of our society that you think is very good

3) What you had for breakfast and is oatmeal with raisins better than poptarts.

Think. Write. Respond.

old friends

I've been on this planet for 27 years at this point.

I have moved - at this point - 4 major times.

Each time I have moved I have left a significant number of friends behind.

I often times wonder if they ever stop to wonder what ever happened to that strange kid with the hair. I've tried a several times to find some of my good friends long since gone mostly to no avail. Every once in a while I'll find one of them to realize that the person I knew those many years ago is no longer but has evolved into someone I don't quite recognize. I suppose it's the same with me in that case. I suppose that's the way of life.

I am particularly looking for one friend from elementary school who I have not talked to since he moved to Canada in the 6th grade now well over a decade ago. I wonder what happened to him.

My friends from my first high school - few as they may have been and as much as I'm sure no one remembers my departure as a sad thing - I wonder still. So much has happened since then, we've grown up. We have started our adult lives and in the whirlwind of being human caught up in the excitement of new and wondrous things I have found myself an awful long way from home.

Airplanes

In college, freshman year, first semester sometime around thanksgiving we studied basic (very basic) fluid mechanics. We studied Bernoulli and everything that has meant in the last few hundred years. We studied the airfoil and how and why it works. 

It's all quite easy to understand.

Fast moving air exerts less pressure on a surface than slow moving. Fine. That makes sense. Get a big wing and it will exert enough force to lift whatever you need it to.

Not long ago I moved and I flew a very long ways.

I stood there at the airport watching planes take off. 

I understand the physics.

I appreciate how much engineering it took to make the Boeing 767.

It's still magic that it actually flies.

It's so heavy and air is so thin.

Amazing.

times of revolution

I really encourage anyone interested in listening to Dan Carlin's latest Common Sense show. I listened to it today and found it quite interesting. And it got me thinking:

What must it have been like to live through the 1960s. Granted my views of the decade are entirely romanticized due partially to my fascination of the cultural revolution during that decade but also in the reality that I know how the cold war and vietnam ended. I'm trying to envision what life must have been like fearing the Soviets and nuclear annihilation. 

A few days ago was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. How would have the 60's unfolded if he had not been killed? Or JFK? What happens if he served out two terms?

What if Camelot never crumbled? or LBJ never been President?

The 1960's seems to have had so many powerful leaders (not all of which I agree with), so many monuments events, a time of great confusion and great anxiety. I'm all kind of wondering what is going to happen with this decade with little leadership, great confusion and great anxiety. I'm all hoping it will turn out good but the more time passes the less optimistic I am - not that there aren't good things happening, they just seem to be drowned out by the hideousness around us - China's human rights and Tibet, the rumblings of a reunified Soviet state and the nightmare that could become Iran and economic markets that look like their going to collapse at any moment that will usher in a new depression at best and new dark age at worst. (Ok, maybe that's a bit extreme - but still)

I became aware of the political world right around the time the Berlin Wall fell. I remember my mom being very emotional about it and me simply not understanding why this wall's dismantling was such a big deal. When the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90s I still didn't understand what was so big of a deal. How I wish I could go back and fully understand the events that I saw but didn't comprehend.

I just hope we're going to be ok with this whole thing.

medicine

I've always been almost healthy. I was nearly constantly ill when I was a kid with strep throat or whooping cough or the like. I spent many a good hour in the doctors office in dearborn and I always hated the unique architecture of the building. Every time I saw it I either was feeling HORRIBLE or was soon to be feeling horrible as they were going to do a procedure on me or experiment or what not.

But on the other hand going to the doctors made me feel better with that magic potion they gave me. Penicillin was the good stuff - it tasted like bubble gum and was pink. Amoxicillin on the other hand was dreadful. It was red and I think was suppose to taste like cherries. It didn't. At all.

But it wasn't until a most unfortunate incident in 7th grade when I - first hand - stumbled upon how incredible these drugs really were and how fortunate I am to be living today as I watched the IV slowly drip into my system.

Bacteria (particularly staph) is in the process of evolving - it's becoming stronger and resistant - and in some terrifying cases immune to our gambit of drugs. I'm just imaging a time maybe 100 years ago when looking back on this magical time where we as a species, if for only a few decades had the distinct upper hand in the biological war. For a few magical decades we were winning the fight against so many microbes. Imagine telling your great grandchildren about this time where all we needed to do to get over an illness is to take a pill and within days you're feeling all better.

I fear the sunset on our victory is approaching. It might be decades out it might be a century. It might never be - maybe we'll find another magic bullet that will keep up winning maybe the natural balance will never be restored but I somehow doubt that. We're facing off against another form of life and one things that biology has taught me: life is wants to keep living. Killing via environmental changes is very difficult. It's actually one of the reasons I find the whole "global warming" scare hilarious. Life will adapt and adapt quickly.

We're living in a magical time where a pill can cure most any common disease. You don't have to fear the fever anymore, you don't have to fear getting ill. We can fix you. For the time being.

Starting to Feel Like Fredo

We ordered Chinese food for lunch at work today.

I was handed a fortune cookie that had two cookies in the package. Then one of the cookies had two fortunes inside.

Three fortunes for one meal. That's gotta be the Chinese kiss of death. Remind me to not get into any boats with my brother any time soon.