Category: Interesting

Look up in the sky…

No, it wasn’t a bird, or a plane or Hillary’s star falling last night. Instead it was a Chinese rocket—possibly a satellite killer—disintegrating as it entered earth’s orbit.

Except in movies, I’ve never seen anything like it. If you saw the “fireworks” at the end of Independence Day as Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum are smoking their cigars as they strut thru the desert or Sandra Bullock at the end of Gravity as she is finally riding home in the ruins of a Chinese space station, then you would have a good idea what was in the sky last night.

I was in Elk Grove Park last night with my wife and son, getting set for the first night of the Strauss Festival when my son looks up in the sky and says, “Dad, look, it’s a comet.”

I looked up, and due south of our location, at about half the height of the trees, was a bright object with a very long flaming tail moving very slowly from west to east.  I’m old enough to know comets just don’t show-up in the sky, plus we were using our star watching apps, so I knew it was something else. My guess was that it was a satellite falling back to earth. The tail was composed of debris, similar to the way a bottle rocket has a flaming tail as it flies thru the air. As it moved across the sky, the tail got smaller.

After my son saw it, I took a few seconds to turn on my camera and switch to video and shoot a movie as it flew (mostly behind the trees). I got 72 seconds before I finally lost sight of it behind more trees. At about 46 seconds into the video, I saw that it had broken into two large pieces.

Below Above is a still from my movie. (9:37 pm on 07-27-2016) Unfortunately, the tail isn’t really visible due to the lack of light sensitivity that my phone has at night. With the naked eye, it was much more spectacular; especially, when we first saw it.

 

More proof I’m ReallyRight as today Joe Miller publishes 5 Ways Orwell’s 1984 Has Come True Since Its Publication 68 Years Ago.

It’s debatable whether George Orwell surmised the ominous threat of totalitarianism that inspired him to pen the dystopic vision, 1984, would extend worldwide and resurface nearly seven decades after its publication. But the novel’s apt description of a world on end have undoubtedly come to pass.

Innumerable examples evidence how 1984 would better be described as a dark portent than a fascinating read, but one thing — the political language dubbed Newspeak, employed by the ruling government, Ingsoc — seems to have served as an instruction manual for the American empire. —Claire Bernish
Link: 5 Ways Orwell’s 1984 has come true

Those days when a hood ornament gave you status may be making a comeback.

Thanksgiving Day we went to see relatives and enjoy a wonderful meal. After the wife and I got home, we stayed up to watch some television while the children were in bed. We went to bed about 11 pm. Since everyone was off on Friday we planned to sleep in and then see other relatives later that day.

I tend to be the lightest sleeper in the family and usually get up several times during the night. At 3:30 in the morning I woke up and started to head toward the bathroom when I heard voices coming from the kitchen. I headed out there and heard my sister on the answering machine.

“I need you to call mom and dad. I fell and hit my head on the bathtub. I can’t get up or get anybody else on the phone.”

At that point I was able to pick up the phone and talk to her. She told me that she had tried to call my parents and some other folks that she knows. Due to the crumby cell service in her area, she was unable to complete a call to anyone else. I knew she was scraping the bottom of the rolodex barrel if she was calling me. I promised her I would call my parents and get them to check on her. (They live 45 minutes closer to her than I do.)

I hung up the phone and called my parents. They headed over to check on her. My sister lives about 25 minutes from my folks so I knew they wouldn’t arrive until about 4 am.

After hanging up the phone I finally made it to the bathroom. It was then that the seriousness of the situation hit me. My sister is disabled due to something called Trigeminal neuralgia. This condition is caused by a blood vessel compressing the Trigeminal nerve.

(More info can be found here Trigeminal neuralgia )

Her situation is severe. My sister is on a variety of different pain medications and seems to be getting worse over time.

I was thinking of her, alone and hurting, needing help that due to distance, I was ill-equipped to provide. I really felt for her and began crying. I was surprised at my reaction but at the time I couldn’t stop sobbing. I went to my bed and started texting some people including my sister that lives in another time zone.

At four, I reached out to my parents via text messaging. (I didn’t want to tie up their phone in case they needed to call for some help for my sister.) They informed me that the gate to the subdivision where my sister lives was closed and they couldn’t get in. It was then I learned that they did not have a key to her house, they did not know her house number or street name and they didn’t know how to get thru the gate.
I know they have been to her place many times and that they are helping to pay for my sister’s place; but they had no info on her actual address! I suggested that they call the county sheriff for a welfare check or 911 as emergency folks could get thru the gate. They refused to do so. They told me this had happened once before and it was probably no big deal. I was told they would go home and then check on her in a few hours!

I’m sorry but such an answer was unacceptable to me. My sister made it clear she was in trouble and the idea that no one would check on her really made me angry.

I took a shower, got dressed and then headed over to check on her myself. I know that she had moved earlier this year and I only knew the subdivision where she lived but I was determined to resolve the situation.

We have a mutual friend that lives on the way to her place. I knew he could help me if he was home and not traveling on this four day week-end. At 5 A.M., I was knocking on his door. About two minutes later, he was at the door. I explained the phone call that I had gotten and he drew a map to my sister’s house.

I jumped into the car and was off to find my sister. When I got to her subdivision, the gate was open. One problem solved and now to find her house. I went to the street described to me by our friend. I couldn’t find the house he described so I parked my car and got out my flashlight and began searching for my sister’s car. It soon became clear that something was wrong. I couldn’t find her place. Then I got a text from my friend and he said it might actually be on this other street. I walked back to the car and drove to the other street.

I found her car right away and then knocked on the door. No answer. I walked around the little house and tried to look into the windows. No luck. I went back to the door and knocked again. I heard something inside and then my sister opened the door.

She explained to me how she had fallen off the toilet and hit her head on the bathtub and where else she had hurt herself in the fall. I visited with her for a while. Since I had a small flashlight, I checked her pupils and they were dilated about where I figured they should be for the amount of light in the room. She thanked me for checking on her and then I left.

On the way to the car, I texted everyone I had tried to contact and told them my sister was bruised but ok.

I made good time getting home and got Chick-fil-A breakfast for the family, arriving at home just after sunrise. It was almost time to begin my regularly scheduled day.

Yesterday was one of those awkward days for being a parent. I took my son to the Dollar Store to get stuff for his shoe box for Samaritan’s Purse. This is a great charity and I’m happy to support it. He is doing it as a school project.

While we were at the strip mall, I thought it would be a good idea to check-out the used book store across the parking lot. After looking around the store, he decided he wanted to get a book on mythology. Of course, this happened to be one of the few new books for sale in a place with thousands of used books.

I relented and agree to purchase the book for my son so we go to the counter to pay. Surrounding the counter are many new books for sale. At his eye level is a book that gets his attention so he asked me about it.

“Dad, what’s 50 Shades of Grey about?”

Awkward.

I said, “It’s about people that want to have sexual relations without consequences, but there is no such thing. It’s against God’s rules.”

Hoping I dodged a bullet on that one, we are starting to drive out of the parking lot as he looks at the table of contents for the mythology book. He then asks, “Dad, what’s rape?”

Awkward.

Not knowing where to start, I say, “It’s something that happens a lot in war. A bad guy will kill a man and then force the wife to have sexual relations with him; since she doesn’t want too, its rape. But sometimes it happens here in our country… It’s against the Bible… I think it’s one of the sins that can be punishable by death.”

I know he’s eleven now but I’m not in any hurry for him to grow up.

27 Ford vehicles showed-up in the parking lot where I work over the last week. All are new fleet vehicles with spot lights on driver and passenger sides and generic paint jobs. Clearly someone is about to upgrade vehicles for use in law enforcement. It’s just strange what kind of things folks leave in the parking lot where I work.

Yesterday was a surreal experience as my wife and I dropped our 10 year old son off at a local college to attend classes. Walking around the school we had both graduated from some twenty years ago was rather odd.

We parked in a parking garage that wasn’t there when I had graduated, and walked him across campus to a building that wasn’t there when either of us had completed school. On the way we passed many mature trees that were planted about the time we had left.

We are both proud to have a son that has good enough academics to be part of the special classes that he was attending. So sporting a new cell phone and a sack lunch we left him to his first day at college.

He reported in as we had asked. Later he said he really enjoyed eating lunch at the benches near his second class. He was on time when we waited to pick him up. We invited him to go to the pool with us afterwards but he said, “No” because he had homework.

Our son has had a busy summer and hopefully will carry some good memories with him for a long time.

Our first stop was in Prescott, Arizona to see some old friends. We went to All Saints Church that Sunday. I thought of the song by Larry Norman

“Country church, country people
With their eyes upon the Lord
Built a church with a steeple
As a place to hear His word”