Things Change?

I just looked at blog posts from four years ago. About mentoring.

I'm thinking the same things, wondering the same things, coming to the same half-conclusions now.

Oh, yeah.

Voting

Three years ago, I volunteered to work at the polls for the Presidential election. We're looking for people to be judge of elections, they said. Well....okay, I replied. And you know what? I really enjoyed it. It was great fun. It was important, and there were a lot of people voting, people who normally don't vote, and I was helping to make it happen. I was very pleased. We were busy all day long, and there was a lot to do. We made it work, and what we did mattered.

Since then, the experience has paled. In each of the elections since then, there's been long periods of time when I'm counting down the hours. To the point where I won't even let myself do that before 1PM, because at that point there's only eight hours of boredom left. Twenty minutes of activity in the morning, trickles through the day, one to two hour periods when absolutely no one comes in, a short burst around 6PM, two more hours, then an hour to an hour and a half to shut it all down, count the votes, fill out the tons of paperwork, pack it all up, get the votes out to the county. And then I get to go back home, finally.

I'm not exactly sure why I want to stop -- the boredom is a lot of it -- but a big part is that it just isn't fun any more. I don't feel like it matters. So, two more times, and then I'll just be a voter again. I'll make a note to go vote, and that'll be fifteen minutes of my day. Done.

I'm looking forward to it. I think. Ask me next November.

Political Loudmouth: Awesome

Found on Facebook, here.

Hi!

Found at Yellowdog Granny.

Observation

When a sixth-grade boy says that the film Thor is really good...take into account the source of that opinion.

Star Date

The woman with that terrific voice who makes astronomy accessible.

NYC

The New York Fire Department took propane heaters and electrical heaters from the Occupy protesters in New York, just before a snowstorm hit the city.

We're just concerned about safety, the mayor says. They're not safe, and they're against the law.

I'm sure he'll be very sad if anyone dies there. Nah, most likely he'll say Well, they knew the risk.....

Observation

I have found that the older I get, the less that I like getting up early. Even if its just occasionally, I don't like it. So why did I get up at a quarter to six this morning?

To prepare breakfast for my daughter, who leaves for a color guard competition at 7AM.

And why am I going to said color guard competition, and expecting to sit in the cold on metal bleachers, for three hours, when I'm not a big fan of the cold?

Same reason.

What can I say, I like my daughter.

Got Change?

Found at Did-You-Know....

Pix

I was looking at photographs of my wife and daughter that were taken at the Senior Recognition Night, last night, and wondered who's that stocky bearded guy standing next to---oh.

When did I get old?

Emphatic

Some marriages get off to a great start.

Football

I'm not a fan of football. I'm not the fan type. I don't care how well or badly athletes do. I don't identify with teams or with individuals on them. If I had to identify with any sport, it probably would be frisbee -- and since people have taken up competitive and extreme frisbee, it likely wouldn't be that one, either.

Yet tonight, I enjoyed a football game. It wasn't the circumstances -- in the cold, sitting on metal bleachers. And it wasn't because I thought it important that our team win. I don't think we're superior if we win, or scum if we lose. But this was a very close game, and the lead changed hands five times - three of the times because one player grabbed an opportunity and ran with it. One time, literally - the kid ran 92 yards for a touchdown. One time, the other team got a thirty yard penalty for an offside tackle, which was, according to the general consensus, virtually unheard of. It was touch and go, all the way, and at the end, with twenty nine seconds to go, the throw to a receiver far down the field was spot on, and the kid took two steps into the end zone to put us ahead by three points. At that point, they did something that I didn't know was possible -- with twenty six seconds to go, our team ahead and in possession of the ball, we ended the game. I thought that was unsporting, but then again, what do I know. I'm not a fan. The other team didn't seem too pleased, though.

We had a guest -- a girl my daughter had known in color guard until the girl graduated, two years ago. Her life has been chaotic since then - unexpectedly pregnant by a boyfriend in college, dropped out and moved back into her parent's home with the unemployed boyfriend - who, it turns out, is twice-divorced and three times a father - and her new son. The boyfriend was kicked out of the house for a while, allowed back in, and then again just a few days ago, ejected again. She’s working now at a McDonalds, and mentioned that she wants to move out but feels trapped by the child and the minimal McWage. Her father, whom she thinks does love her (in his own weird way, as she puts it), is a classic control freak. Oh, and she's also bipolar. She doesn't seem desperate for friends, but she clearly was very glad that my daughter had invited her along. I always like my daughter, but when she does things like that, I am especially proud of her.

The reason that I was at the game was because it was Senior Recognition Night for team members, band members, and color guard members. Each one, bedecked in a sash covered with flowers (I haven't seen so many flowers in one place since the last Mafia funeral, I said, which got me a strange look from a passing parent) got to go out on the field with parents and be recognized -- one by one, and then en masse. Seeing my daughter high-fiving a girl she's known since preschool, whom, after next year, she'll see rarely, if at all -- that was bittersweet. I felt a little sad for her.

And for me, as I watched the sheer joy that the high school kids were having. I went to a Catholic co-institutional school, and its the main reason that I was more than willing to send my daughter to a public school. It was okay -- nothing particularly draconian about it -- but I am sure that we never had as much all out fun and delight in each other's presence as these kids were having tonight. Dancing, singing, laughing. High school is a time of angst, sure, but fun? Sure couldn't tell it from my own experiences. I was envious. My wife says the band isn't always that exuberant. She asked me if my school had cheerleaders, and I said Sedate ones. Catholic high school, remember? Ah, she replied. No miniskirts? No babes, either, I replied, looking at the incredibly limber girls there. At least, none that I recall.

An interesting evening.

Powah

I'm not a Power to the People kind of guy. Frankly, I think that most people, including me, don't have a clue about how to resolve problems whose scope is far beyond their lives. That's what we have politicians and NGOs for. What people bring - and what the Occupy efforts are bringing - is pressure on the politicians to do something to resolve the problems. As the Governor said in Blazing Saddles, they have to protect their phoney-balony jobs. (I don't think that most politicians are phoney, but a lot of them are a hell of a lot more concerned about their future than about mine.)

Consequently, I tend to find the rhetoric at STFU Conservatives to be a little too intense for my tastes. Their articles tend to include phrases like shit just got real and pictures of scowling people and eager young strikers displaying flagant disregard for the niceties of an ordered society. But I read it, because most of the time, what they're saying is: Nobody's paying attention to the vast majority of the country, and that's got to change.

And that, I believe in. I don't believe in it at the fringes, where the crazy people live and the crazy politicians feed, but the general thrust of it, I like.

Apple, the core

Change

College

I just learned that the college where my daughter wants to go publishes blogs by some of the students. I looked at a couple. They're not entirely relentlessly upbeat. But I was flattened by the casual comments about just how deep the snow gets in northern Vermont, or how relentless the cold wind can be in midwinter. One person, talking about a two day period where he had to stay in his room due to a very bad chest cold -- his room is apparently a basement room, tiny, with two small windows high up on the wall --- says "If you think the days here pass slowly, try spending two days in bed, unable to leave your room." Don't get me wrong, these people all seem to love it there -- but they sound like the kind of people who cherish pain and adversity. No pink dorm rooms with fluffy teddy bears here.

I am now terrified at the thought that this is where she wants to go.

One!

TSA

From the TSA Blog:

This past Wednesday, a Transportation Security Officer's search of a suspicious bag at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport's C-Pier checkpoint yielded five credit cards and an additional driver's license... all belonging to different people, none of which belonged to the passenger. TSA contacted the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, who took the individual into custody.

This was probably a criminal. And yet -- letting the TSA say oh look, we don't like the looks of that, it has nothing to do with airline security, but let's get this guy arrested -- not too thrilled by that.

And then there's this.

Park Your Car?