Here’s a Halloween video for you today, just for fun. It was put together by some of my favorite PCHS students.
Racin’
Well, the dirt eatin’, ears ringin’, heart poundin’ season opened last Friday. Yup, the 2008 season started at the local 3/8’s mile dirt track. As it happens, I share a stock car, ol’ 94, with another guy and we trade off driving. I gotta say, it’s more fun than humans should have.
This is our third year, and I have to tell you that stock car driving is one of those things that looks easy from the stands but really takes some getting used to when you are in the fast chair.
For starters, you can’t see. That’s probably the biggest difference between stock car racing and just going fast on the road. You have on a helmet, which may be tied to your seat, so you can’t turn your head. Instead of glass you have screen in the windshield and net in the side window, not bad when you get used to it but at first it’s hard to see through it. There are no mirrors, you kind of “use the force” to know somebody is coming up behind you, and come they do! You think you’re just flying, “wow mom look how fast I’m goin’,” and all of the sudden swoosh, a car passes you like you’re stopped.
All your instincts are wrong too. Suppose you’re on the freeway, and there is a car on each side of you but just say a fender length ahead of you. Now suppose the freeway narrows down to two lanes and the two cars begin to move into your lane. Well of course you’ll back off the gas and shift back behind them, defensive driving and all that… well not on the track, if you’re on a good line and headed into a corner, you push on the gas. It’s ok to rub a little and you can rub your way right past them because you’re on the fastest line through the turn, assuming you don’t all spin. And you haven’t lived until you’ve spun in the middle of a pack of cars.
Now since I share driving, I also share watching. You see a lot of interesting people in the stands. Of course there are the experts who have never been in a race, but they’re just boring. The amusing people are the ones, usually crew or family, who sit in the pit stands and try to give signals to their driver. Now I can tell you, in the car you don’t even SEE people in the stands, they are just something not to hit. There’s too much going on to see somebody waving their hands around off the track. The funniest though is when they try to signal the driver to pass, just what the hell do they think he’s doing out there. There is really only three things the driver is trying to do:
1. Pass the guy in front of him.
2. Don’t get passed by the guy behind him.
3. Don’t smash up the car, at least not real bad.
Pretty much in that order.
Now I would never tell them that their driver can’t see them, in fact I’ve advised them that they most certainly can be seen but they have to make the signals big, REALLY BIG! Heck, now it’s almost like watching one of those modern dance routines.
The Mason’s Son
Everyone needs to go to “Variant Frequencies” and listen to the short stories podcasted from there. They especially need to listen to “The Mason’s Son” written by me and read by Paul Jenkins. It’s a story of tyrants, castles and intrigue.
Paintball!
The large red welts are finally healing. I took a bunch of Boy Scouts and their friends paint balling the other day. My youngest son had been blowing the whole week about how he hadn’t taken a direct hit the last time we were there, just splatter. Well we went to get his girlfriend, who was going with us, and he started telling her the same old tired story. I told her, “he’s been like this all week, don’t stand too close to him cause he’s got a target painted on him and he’s going down.”
So, there I was, my son on one side and me on the other in a 3 on 3. I told the other two guys that my boy was all mine. The only thing I hadn’t planned for was I had loaned my heavy shirt to his girl, who had only worn a T-shirt, which left me in…. a T-shirt.
The attack started, I moved up well. My boy and I were trading fire but neither of us could get a hit. I decided to take drastic action. I charged, gun blazing (can a paintball gun blaze?). We traded fire getting closer and closer, and finally I achieved my goal, my son had experienced “several” close range, direct hits, at the cost of several for myself. In the normal way of men, I feigned indifference to where I was hit and made my way back to the dead box. I am here to confess to you though, IT HURT LIKE HELL!! He nailed me good and with only my light T-shirt, I might as well have been naked. Paintballs make these goofy rings when they hit you, and I actually had bleeding rings on my chest side and belly. Did I stop? Nah, after a few minutes they got numb (till the next day) and the testosterone poisoning kicked in I went a couple of more rounds, after all, I’ll heal.
A one legged man in a gas kickin’ contest
We were driving around on a shopping trip on Saturday and finally I had to suffer the painful process of purchasing gas for my Trialblazer. Yes, I drive an SUV but come on, I live in the mountains of West Virginia, if I can’t justify it who can, and every trip to the pump makes me reevaluate the wisdom of that choice. Believe it or not though, this is not a rant about gas prices, or pollution or any of that stuff, this is a piece on plain old embarrassment, not everyday embarrassment but the mortification so terrible that you have to look around and see if anyone you know has seen what happened. Alas, I am happy to say I was only a witness, not the subject of this experience.
So, there we were, having used the pay at the pump, we were in our car, freshly fueled and ready to go. We were on the self service lane just outside of the first line of pumps. The inside lane, the one between the first line and the station, I noticed, was that ever rarer echo from the past, a “full service lane.” We were checking out list and deciding where we needed to go next when someone pulled into the full service lane. These days one might expect someone to pull in there to run into the station to buy something, or get out to check a tire, but they just sat in their car and waited. This in itself caught my attention, but only as an odd thing. We continued to check off our list to see if the “shopping” experience could come mercifully to an end and we could begin the two hour trek home. In the door appeared the station attendant coming to pump our neighbor’s gas, but this was not some fresh faced young high school kid, in the door stood a tall withered octogenarian. Yes folks, here was a man so old he probably remembered when transportation ran on hay, eager to serve what I now noticed was a woman of about 30. Then I noticed the old man’s walker, and as he moved toward the car, his odd gait drew attention to his lack of a left leg.
Now, imagine if you will, a thirtysomething woman pulls up to the full service pump at an unfamiliar gas station and an ancient, one legged man with a walker, spends an eternity negotiating the distance to and around your car to pump your gas, check your oil, and wash your windows, while you, a healthy woman it the prime of your years are now trapped in you car, force to endure his services. He is in the way now, you can’t back out and move to self service. You can’t even remember whatever impuse led you to choose full service today. All you can do is endure and tell yourself, “I AM a good person, I am NOT a calous insensitive creton.” As the man slide-hopped around her car, I had a good view between the pumps, of her deer in the headlight eyes looking more trapped by the minute. For a long time I couldn’t leave, finally, we had to go because after 15 minutes he was still working to fulfill his tasks faithfully. As we were leaving the woman became aware she was not alone with her faithful attendant. She noticed us watching and put her head in her hands, I think she was weeping.
Don’t Tase me bro
So, they tased a student at a University of Florida political Campus Forum. What were they thinking?! I first think of poor old Hubert Humphrey who lost his chance (and a pretty good chance at that) for the presidency, because outside of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago’s finest were beating the snot out of anti-war protesters on LIVE TV! Hard to concentrate on speeches and posturing when young people are being beaten with sticks. I’m sure fellow Democrats were grateful to Mayor Richard Daley for preserving the peace, and sinking the party’s presidential aspirations.
Meanwhile, John Kerry, like old Hubert, in the special spirit of Homeland Security, has more help than he can stand. It is impossible for him not to be painted by this incident, even though he had no power to change its course.
The police are saying the videos paint a false picture and that the student was much more disruptive than it appears, but come on people, this was a Campus Forum, you should expect some confrontation. If it was at a meeting of the League of Women Voters, or the Rotary Club, maybe, but Universities have always been the seat of political challenge. If a politician doesn’t want to be called to account, maybe even rudely (though I don’t think that ever furthers one’s goals), he should talk to the Kiwanis, and the police should behave accordingly.
We had a generation of Police who were raised during the “War at Home” protests during the Vietnam War. Before entering law enforcement, these young people saw their peers, and sometimes experienced for themselves, inappropriate responses of law enforcement. When they became the Law, they tended to have a measured response. Now a new generation of law enforcement, without this experience, is coming into its own. This is particularly unfortunate in light of the Homeland Security trends. We once again hear that old chestnut, “they have nothing to fear if they aren’t doing anything wrong.” Well, we’ll see. For myself, I might invest in a pair of insulated, rubber, long johns, the video makes tasers sound like they hurt.
Women’s rugby
My daughter plays rugby at college. I worry about her a little, it is a FULL contact sport, but I see the confidence and self reliance it builds in her and wonder where it will take her throughout her life. The women of her generation are going to be a different sort than the women from generations before. I helped to coach high school girl’s soccer so I saw some of these girls up close.
These are not the rare woman athletes of days gone past, these are the everygirls at the school. Today’s everygirl is tough. They face the world with the determination to work for what they want. It’s not just the athletes either, the attitude of being themselves is pervasive. The old idea that a smart girl isn’t attractive is not the norm, helpless women are out.
I once told my daughter that girls could do anything. At the time I didn’t think rugby would be one of those things, but good for her, and I think in the long run, good for us. If women can have the confidence to step out and fulfill their potential, and society has the maturity to accept them, what can it do but benefit us all. I am an engineer. Any time I have worked beside a talented woman, her insights and ideas, coming from a much different angle than my testosterone soaked approaches, have always been valuable.
So parents, support your daughters, whether in sports, academics, the arts, whatever…the world is changing. We all will thank you
Something to say
I remember when I was a kid and really really wanted a tape recorder so I could record stuff. In the fullness of time my Dad got one and it was with great excitement I took it into my room, ready to say profound things. I laid it on the bed, pick up the microphone, and turned it on. Then after a few minutes I turned it off again. I sat there for a bit and turned it on again. Then I turned it off. It took a few times before I realized that I had nothing to say, even to myself. I’m hoping that will not be the case here. The internet is a powerful forum that seems to be full of crackpots. Those of us who would like to try and make positive changes find ourselves…suddenly speechless. Anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a man of few words so I will try to be concise and insightful.
