CSotD: After the Ball is Half-Over
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I’m disappointed in last night’s half-dinner, though I hope it lasted enough for everyone to get their selfies, as Telnaes suggested ahead of time.
But I wanted to see how it came out, and I guess while we can’t have nice things, we also can’t have not-so-nice things, either. It’s too early to get into today, however.
First Dog makes a nice segue from politics to humor, and this dark take on Chernobyl and Fukushima ought to be a caution but I suppose people immune to satire will read it as if it were an episode of Wild Kingdom.
I’m not against nuclear power, but I was just remembering when I got to watch a pharmacy being built, hard-hat tours being a privilege of journalism. The site was in a flood zone, so the builder was required to set a particularly thick foundation that included three feet of impermeable walls, such that the project was being referred to locally as “the concrete boat.” The company was then required to abide by a list of drugs and other products that could not be stocked on lower shelves, lest flooding wash them into the river.
I’d like to think we could apply that sort of caution to nuclear reactors and perhaps even ramp it up a bit. Though I’d also like to think we could set aside areas for wildlife, and the recent decision to allow sulfide mining in the Boundary Waters area suggests that we’re a long way from giving a damn.
In other dark environmental humor, Sipress suggests a stubborn ice fisherman refusing to give up his hobby despite a warming climate.
Which also reminds me of reporting days. I was doing a story on dioxide pollution in Lake Champlain near a paper mill in Ticonderoga, and the environmental regulator I called for information said he was surprised I wasn’t down there.
I dropped everything and went, to find that ice fishermen had emerged from their shacks to find a large section of the shelf they were on had broken off and was drifting into the middle of the lake.
They were evacuated by helicopter, and everyone survived, but it makes you wonder how long that hobby will continue. This week, they were finally able to retrieve a truck that had broken through during the winter, as well as a snowmobile that had gone in trying to rescue the truck.
The vehicles are ruined, but the amount of gas and oil they contained is the real cost to the lake.
A little more regional humor: I should feel protective of Adirondack chairs, but as much as I want to support the old homestead, I’ve never found them all that comfortable, and, yes, they’re nearly impossible to get out of, even when you’re young and spry, never mind now.
I suspect they’re more popular among the LL Bean crowd than among the folks who actually live in the area full time.
I don’t recall people bringing lawn chairs to soccer games, either when I was coaching youth teams or when my boys were playing in high school. It might have been nice, however, since the alternative was having them stalk the sidelines yelling advice to their poor kids.
I have since noticed that youth soccer seems to have squelched the screamers, which as a coach I was never able to do. I remember one mom who kept yelling “Muscle memory! Muscle memory!” at her nine-year-old, which made me suspect that he’d never be able to get out of his own way if she didn’t start first.
But I’ll confess I did a lot of … well … verbal coaching, until I took a coaching effectiveness course, after which I asked my team if they liked my advice or would prefer that I shut up and let them play.
It wasn’t close. More like unanimous.
Jonesy got into the Guardian this past week, and there they call him “Steve Jones,” which is kind of like those teachers who use your full name when most of your friends didn’t even know it. But this one does hit a vulnerable spot in the UK, where they’re debating joining Australia in putting limits on kids’ screen time, and I think worldwide in terms of the gambling that has broken out online.
I’ve said I was glad to have stopped visiting classrooms before the Smartphone explosion, but this reminded me that, as a parent, I used to impose a ban on Walkmen when we were going someplace in the car. I wanted them present and in the moment, because car trips were a chance for family time.
Shortly after my kids were grown and gone, the carmakers began putting in video screens so you’d never ever have to talk to your children again.
Progress is our most important product.
We’re a few weeks short of warm weather here, but Mr. Boffo recommends taking it easy, and if you have the forethought to plant a pair of trees close enough, a hammock is a fine place to chill in summer. I think most people have those frames instead, but for a look at the overall topic of relaxation, try this ridiculous story about a young woman who gave up a six-figure job to live on cruise ships full-time.
Turns out cruise ships are full of old people and they’re really noisy. Not the old people, the constant entertainment, which doesn’t always include water slides. Golly, why bother?
And, besides, work-at-home or work-on-board (which she was attempting) robs you of the camaraderie of being in the office. Maybe they should have steel-drum bands in the office to make it seem more festive.
The disadvantage of working from home — and it may be the only one — is that balky printers become your problem.
Fortunately, the paper-free world is becoming a reality, which in my case means that I use the printer maybe once every two or three months. Unfortunately, that means that each time I fire it up, I’ve forgotten not only its flaws but how I was able to get around them.
With the result that I look at Eddie Izzard’s classic bit as a sort of documentary.
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