Wednesday, 4/8

I don't have a car, so I don't have to buy gas for a car. But if I did, I don't know that I'd let it sit there just running, and running...

And running.

For those of you not fortunate enough to live a (mostly-car) free lifestyle, just let me say this—I feel your pain. Every time I walk past a gas station and see prices driven sky-high by a war of choice I myself cringe a little. I can't imagine what it's like having to drive 15 or 20 or 60 miles a day.

It must be painful.

So that makes me wonder about the guy around the corner from where I live. I don't know him, but he's one of those stereotypical guys around here who drives a pickup truck. He also, from what I can tell, has a habit of starting his pickup so that it's warm when he gets into it. With the weather we've been having recently I don't begrudge anyone that. I really don't.

But...I went running this morning. When I ran past his truck it was turned on, the engine roaring like the engine of a diesel pickup truck usually does. I finished my four miles, which means that about 35 minutes later, as I was walking up the street cooling down, I noticed that his truck was still running.

And as far as I can tell, it hadn't moved an inch.

Gas is what...four-plus bucks a gallon, at least here in Marquette? How much gas—how much money—must a big diesel pickup truck left idling in a driveway burn up in that (at least) 35 minute span? I mean, forgot about all the toxins you're spewing into the atmosphere by leaving your pickup running for at least 35 minutes; that's a rant for another day. How much money do you (literally) burn by letting your truck run just so you'll be warm?

I just don't get it. But then, I'm not a pickup owner. Heck, I'm barely even a driver of a (fuel-efficient) car. There may be a reason for letting a truck run every morning, just as the money that goes out the tailpipe may not be an issue. But still...you're wasting a finite resource (gas). You're throwing away a valuable commodity (money). Where's the sense in that? Where's the logic in that?

Some days, I see things that make me realize I'm not like other people. What I noticed while running this morning was one of those things.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 4/7

Ever wonder how my mind works? Well, apparently, THIS is how my mind works--

Those are notes, scratched out over the span of a few days, for my TV piece last night. I've mentioned about how, on occasion, the bits pop into my head fully formed. The one I did last night, sadly, was not like that. In fact, like most of them, I had a broad idea, and as I then as I pondered that idea it came more fully into focus, allowing me to write thoughts and/or complete lines that might eventually be used in the piece.

That sheet of notes is fairly typical when I'm writing, although it's also atypical in that if you were to see the other side there would be even more jottings and arrows pointing from one thought to another. I usually just cover one side of paper; I guess this time, I was just lucky.

Of course, I WAS writing about one of my favorite things of all time, space. It's funny; until last Friday, it didn't even occur to me to talk about the Artemis mission, if only because it really doesn't have a lot to do with the UP (I mean, aside from me being a space geek). However, and don't ask how I connected the two, the Seney Stretch popped into my head as a metaphor, I jotted that down, and before I knew it, I had the sheet you saw above.

Well, actually I had both sides of sheet, but you get the idea.

Was I able to somehow meld a trip to the moon with “Life n the 906”? Judge it for yourself, and remember--

It all started with a bunch of almost illegibly written notes on a small piece of paper--

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 4/6

You know, it would be one less thing to worry about.

First of all, hope you had a great Easter, and that all your chocolate bunnies were actual chocolate and not just “chocolately flavored candy”, as a lot of them are these days. I had a great weekend myself, making pea soup and trying my hand at making Bienenstich, or “Bee Sting Cake”, a traditional German goodie--

It was yummy.

Speaking of Germany, we're now at T minus one month (to the day) before we (hopefully) head over there for a few days of fun. Over the weekend I took care of a bunch of little things, ranging from beginning to write my “Life in the 906”s ahead a few weeks to starting to decide what goes where in luggage, backpacks, and carry-ons.

Plus I wondered about the blogs.

Here's the deal—as you may recall, every time we go to Europe I'd write a blog on a nightly basis about what we did that day. People seemed to enjoy it, even if it does seem (at least to me) to be a little humble-bragging about what we were doing. But seeing as how it's been two years since we've gone over there and have done anything like that I'm starting to wonder--

Do I need to do it any more?

There are several points behind my pondering the question, not least of which is the fact that we have no idea whether or not this trip is either going to come off as planned or even come off at all. Because of strikes in Germany and TSA troubles here in the US we could find ourselves stranded at Frankfurt Airport for four days or find ourselves struck in Chicago because, well, it's 2026 and nothing seems to be going right in 2026.

Not only that, but we're not actually doing much this time around. We're just going to basically one place—Saarbrucken--to check out the area, see a favored soccer team of Loraine's, and head across the border to France & Luxembourg to buy (real) chocolate. Do people really want to read about that? I'm not sure. It's not like we're meeting people or will be the subject of a news conference (which, as we all know, HAS happened in the past). Of course, without a lot of concrete plans for the days we're there I might have the extra hour or two each night it takes to put one of the blogs together, and, if I'm being honest, it HAS been kind of fun going back and reading them for the past several trips, so...

See why I can't decide anything yet?

Thankfully, I still have one month to the day to make that decision, as I probably wouldn't be able to write anything until we get to Frankfurt on May 7th. If you have an opinion on the matter, please let me know, as I don't write the blogs for me, I write them for anyone who wants to read them.

So vote early, and vote often. Your voice is the one of the most important as I ponder whether to do these again or not.

Thanks!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 4/2

That was kinda cool.

I know I haven't written about it all, what with my recent obsession over the weather, but the space geek in me has closely been following the developments around the impending launch of the Artemis II mission around the moon. As we all know, I was warped by being a little kid during the Apollo missions a thousand years ago, and seeing this is the first times human have attempted the trip to the moon since then...

Well, you can kinda guess my reaction to it.

I had the launch coverage on in the background as I was working yesterday, and while I didn't get a chance to see much of it I did note the little kid in me would have been quite jealous regarding what little kids can see of a launch these day. Back a thousand years ago when the Apollo launches were taking place you could only see whatever Walter Cronkite (or whoever you watched) saw and whatever CBS (or whoever you watched) decided to show you. But now, you can just watch NASA TV and see (as I did) over four hours of pre-launch coverage, featuring cameras inside the capsule and a whole bunch of helicopter beauty shots of the spacecraft on the pad.

Can you imagine what little kid me would have been like had I been able to access coverage like that during Apollo? If you think I'm geeky now...

8-)

Anyway, I hope things go well during the duration of the flight and, more than anything else, I hope it's not another half century before I get to watch the launch of humans to the moon. After all, that's a long, long time to wait.

*****

Because tomorrow's a corporate holiday I have the day off, so there won't be a new one of these. Before I leave, though, I have to wish a happy birthday to one of the two people without whom I wouldn't be here geeking out at the launch of a spacecraft. It's my Mom's birthday on Sunday, so I hereby declare that she gets to spend the day munching on chocolate Easter bunnies.

After all, next to a rocket launch, that might be the best way to spend a big day, right?

Happy birthday in advance, Mom!!

Love,

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 4/1 (no fooling)

Please tell me this isn't a very bad April Fool's Day joke.

Please.

As you know, we have had one horrendous winter around here, with snow storm piling upon snow storm. After the historic event we lived through a couple of weeks ago one would hope that Mother Nature would take a little pity on us but sadly, that does not appear to be the case--

Forecasts are still varying wildly, and will probably change eight times before tonight, but while it seems like we here in Marquette will (hopefully) see a bunch of rain mixed with snow, outlying areas outside of the city could see up to eight inches of snow, some freezing rain, and, given the way our year has gone so far, a plague of locusts.

Okay, maybe not that last item, but it looks like ti could be a mess, something that we really don't need as we're still struggling to clean up from the last mess. Take Marquette for example—the winter parking ban has been extended through April 15^th, city crews are working day and night to fully clear off streets & sidewalks, and the DPW is—literally--running out of places to dump the snow they remove.

Do we REALLY need another eight inches on top of everything else?

Now, hopefully, this will be a like a lot of Spring storms, and either not live up to its potential or hit the hardest away from the lake. Of course, if it hits inland, that means our friends in places like Negaunee or Republic or Big Bay have to deal with it. And while they probably have a little more space in which to dump the snow they're trying to remove (unlike here in a packed city) they've also received more snow.

And after the dumping upon dumping that we're endured the past few months, I wouldn't wish that on them as well.

We'll have to see how it all turns out. If it fizzles out, cool. If it doesn't, we'll just have to keep muttering “is it June yet” to ourselves until it actually IS June.

And if that doesn't work? Well, we'll just have to hold it against Mother Nature for playing one of the cruelest April Fools Day jokes on us that she could come up with.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 3/31

You know, I would not have thought people would start that early in the morning.

In a sign that we live in a rapidly changing world I have started to notice something a little more than I would have thought. I usually run in the morning before work, which means that I'm on the streets around 8 am. And more than often than not these days I'll be running down a residential street and notice an odor, an odor that would not have been legal to smell in Michigan a decade ago.

Almost every day I'm out running around 8 am, I'll catch a whiff of someone smoking pot.

Now, I'm not against people using marijuana. Even though I don't partake myself, I did vote to legalize it. I'm cool with whatever you wanna do. I just find it...interesting that there's that much early morning usage of it. When pot became legal, I kind of assumed people would use it like they use alcohol, during certain times of the day and for certain occasions. But, as with many things in life, I was wrong.

Of course, the way the world is today, I really can't blame anyone for taking a hit before they head off to whatever reality's about to throw at them.

8-)

I've noticed another thing along those lines, as well. I can be walking down the street any time of the day, have a car go past me, and then a few seconds later catch a whiff of the same odor I come across while running. This worries me a little more; if you wanna get stoned when you're at home or wherever, cool. But doing so while you're operating a big metal box on wheels? That one gets a little...problematic. Even if the driver isn't partaking, there's probably enough second hand smoke in the car for a bit of a contact buzz, and as someone who walks everywhere and has enough problems with drivers not paying attention to pedestrians, well...

Let's just say that I'd prefer you not use while driving, just as I'd prefer you'd not drink while driving. And I'm pretty sure city and state police would agree with me, as well.

Back in 2018 when we the people legalized marijuana in Michigan I had no idea how the whole venture would turn out. From my point of view, with the exception of people using it in cars, it's probably one of the more successful social changes we've seen in recent decades, especially when you consider it moved a whole underground economy above ground for the benefit of everyone.

And like with all successful (social) experiments, it provides a few unexpected answers, as well, evidence of which is ample if you're out pounding the pavement at 8 am.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 3/30

I see what you're doing there, sugar. And I'm not gonna let you get away with it.

I was getting ready to do some baking this weekend, and bought a brand-new package of sugar in doing so. As I was putting it away I noticed two things, one being that, much like flour, paper containers really are not the best way to store things like sugar.

The other? Well, it was something printed on said paper container--

Yup. Look at what it says in the green portion of the package.  They're trying to make sugar sound healthy by saying it's fat-free. I mean...technically it's true, much in the same way cyanide could market itself as being “gluten-free”, but that doesn't make it any better for you.

Really, sugar, it doesn't.

Now, I have nothing at all against sugar. I use it each and every time I bake, and even, on occasion, when I cook. It's not evil (like, say, cyanide), and as long as you're aware of its calorie content you should be fine. But to simply ignore that fact and call yourself “fat-free” is a little...cynical, at best, and downright misleading at worst. I mean, I'm hoping there won't be any people out there who look at the label and think “hey—no fat. I can eat as much as I want”.

But I've also been on the Internet recently. I'm well aware of just how stupid people can be when they want.

In the end, I know it doesn't matter. Sugar can label itself as “fat free” because, well, it is. They're not lying. Sugar is just as fat free as cardboard, gasoline, plywood, and cyanide. So if you're baking something and run out of sugar, don't worry.

You can always substitute one of those other ingredients I just mentioned. After all, just like sugar, they're also “fat-free”.

(jim@wmqt.com), who would hope that everyone reading this knows that last line is just a joke and in no way a suggestion that you substitute plywood (or cyanide) for sugar. Yet, I have been on the Internet recently, and know just how stupid people can be when they want, so...

DON'T USE ANY OF THOSE INGREDIENTS AS A SUBSTIUTE FOR SUGAR!)