I’ve known people to vilify anyone who enters the military as mentally ill and looking for an excuse to kill people. I’ve heard people say that the only reason anyone would enter the armed forces is because they weren’t very bright. People can be downright nasty at times to those who risk everything for their freedom.

Cowardice is rampant. I’m especially grateful for the straightforward courage of our veterans.

Planning errors were our biggest downfall. I knew there were events in downtown Atlanta, but I was actually using this as a way to get away from college football — specifically the Alabama/Virginia Tech game. See, my brother Lauren was all about Alabama football, and he was living in Hokey territory. It was a badge of honor to him to piss off Tech fans around him. This game was something we’d been looking forward to for most of the year. So, I was glad I’d be at a convention and a baseball game, to avoid that first hard game of the season.  Yeah, guess where they played? The Georgia Dome, because that’s a natural venue for that game. But you already knew this, didn’t you? This is what I get for avoiding the news. I started seeing Virginia Tech jerseys everywhere. It was like a sledgehammer to my gut.  An emotional booby trap.

There were other issues, of course. We shouldn’t have taken the kids, or should have taken them straight to the daycare services. There were a million people there, and the kids were well behaved, but constantly on the verge of being lost or trampled. I shouldn’t have allowed us to get double booked with the ball game, because we had the bright idea of avoiding the 10 minutes a block traffic and hoofed it to Turner Stadium. We should have tattooed a map of downtown Atlanta to one of us. I mean, there were henna artists right there. They’d have done it for no more than $20.

The line was long, and we should have brought more cash to pay for tickets. That would have saved us two hours. In fact, we should have started out with cash and credit, because we finally found ourselves a parking space and it took credit.  All in all, we missed out on a hugely fun time because the expectations were too high, we didn’t plan well enough, and we kept wandering in circles and trying to keep the kids from being bored to death. Also, because I kept bursting into tears and apologising for being an angry, broken person.

I hate that I don’t have much shiny stuff to tell everyone, but I know people want to know what I saw. We went to one presentation by Lucasfilm, which was very exciting for the boys.  It highlighted the upcoming Season 2 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the Old Republic MMORPG coming out soon. That looked really wicked.

The cosplay was colorful and varied.  For a bunch of introverts, I saw tons of skin and self-confidence.  There were steampunk, anime, comic book, period, and any other types of costumes you can think of.  There were even two Coralines that I saw.  No, we don’t have a lot of pictures.  Refer back to me trying to keep the kids from being trampled and general crowd panic.

There were some really cool vendors.  We wanted to find some dice, but there were no GameScience anywhere.  In fact, the only dice to be had were Chessex.  I wouldn’t be caught rolling those things, but they didn’t have a decent collection of dicebags, either.  That was a big disappointment.  Maybe next year I can represent GameScience, and if I learn to sew or leatherwork between then and now, I can provide those as well.  There was certainly a market for them that wasn’t filled.

There were some spectacular artists, my favorite being Kevin Dyer.   His artwork is made of cast paper, and he relies heavily on Celtic themes.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but I loved all the Celtic Knots and dragons and trees. I want one of everything, and a house big enough to house it along with my Ansel Adams prints that I will own one day.

OH!  I do have one encounter with someone nifty in particular.  I had to say “excuse me” because I almost bumped into this dude in a pink dress, with a white mohawk and black corset that matched his combat boots.  I think it was Malcolm McDowell, from A Clockwork Orange and Heroes.  So that did send my tummy swimming a bit.  For a few moments I was very excited.  But then Red Chief almost plowed into him and I thought the earth was going to swallow me whole, so we walked away.

Next year we’ll be much more prepared, and I’ll regale you with all sorts of stories.  If anyone else went, I’d love to know more of what happened around the Con.  I know that there were four buildings and days of events, so we missed out on a lot.  I’d love to hear about it.

We do have a Braves game we’re going to Saturday night, though. So we’ll miss the aquarium event, which kind of bites, but we’ll have fun anyway.  My Mom is a huge Reds fan, and the rest of my family are Braves fans. (I hate baseball, but I’m a trooper.) So, it’s a tradition to go to at least one Reds vs. Braves game every year.  There’s only one this year. It often falls on the weekend of Dragon*Con, and we see all the people dressed up in their costumes as we drive through downtown and pine for the fjords.

So are you going?  Would you like to meet up?  Let me know.   I’d love to at least be on the lookout for crazy internet people to dying to mug me in a very public, crowded venue.  Plus, there’s gonna be Felicia Day, Bill Shatner, and Patrick Stewart!   And others!  Go look!

I’ve always glamorized coffee drinking in my mind. Older, wiser people I wanted to be like when I grew up drank it.  It smelled so good, that the taste was a huge disappointment. I remember my first cup vividly. After I begged him to pour me a cup one time, my Peepaw poured me a cup of milk, put about a tablespoon of coffee in it, and handed me the sugar bowl. He told me to put “maybe 4 big ol’ spoons rite cheer” which I did. Heaping spoonfuls. (This is the same set of grandparents that let me add as much sugar to my cereal as I wanted. Including Raisin Bran! Yeah, they were cool.) I took a drink, and all I could taste was bitter, like a pecan pit. “Add more sugar, baby.” He finally stopped me at half the sugar bowl, and I gave the cup to my brother, who gladly slurped it down.

For many years, I never tried coffee again. Coffee flavored ice creams, coffee in pastries, any of it, made me gag. I figured I just took after Daddy, who hated the stuff too. Then, around the time he turned 40, he started drinking it too.  I thought it was part of a midlife crisis, because around that time he also started wearing jeans that already had a washed finish and quit looking for non-buttoned down collars on all his dress shirts.

About a month ago, one of the game night regulars, let’s call him Vonapier, came early. I was sitting around, mopey and bummed, and he said, “I know what will cheer you up! I’ll be right back!”

He ran to the store and came back with two Starbucks frappucinos. These were the bottled kind, which were basically coffee, sugar, and cream. One was mocha, and the other vanilla. “I want you to start drinking coffee, T.”

I have no idea why, but I took it as a challenge. It was something to do, right?  I have always liked the idea of being a connoisseur, and this was much cheaper than wine or cheese tasting classes.  Plus, it kept me going in the mornings, when I’m inclined to go back to bed many days lately.  Oh, but those frappucinos were gross, both flavors. But I tried to like them, and I ordered a coffee a couple of times when I needed a buzz in the mornings. I wasn’t sure what I was getting, though, and didn’t know how much sugar or cream to add to things at all. I’d drink maybe a quarter of the cup and then throw it out.

And then when Mom came up the next time, she stopped by a Starbuck’s and got a frozen frappucino. I ordered an iced green tea, which she made a weird face about and asked, “Isn’t that bitter?” After I laughed at her for drinking coffee and asking that question, she offered her drink up to try, and it was yummy! I’d overcome at least the aversion to the coffee taste! Woot!

I spent about a week making homemade frappes with instant coffee. But I knew I was making basically what amounted to a cheap milk slushy. So I broke down and bought a coffee maker and excitedly ground some of my very own Starbuck’s French Roast. Heck, I like dark chocolate, so I should like the bolder coffee, right?

Oh, wrong. So wrong! That crap tastes like ashes!!!  I can find no redeeming value for this junk.  It doesn’t even give the apartment that delicious coffee smell!  Instead, it smells like I burnt some fudge.

I didn’t dive in with my normal research like I should have, that’s for certain. I now know that the darker roast means, well, duh, that they roast the beans longer.  That translates to less coffee flavor and more smoke.  No wonder that stuff gagged me out and set me back to square one.  I’m cheap, though, so I’ve been trying to make do all week.  I’ve read up on how to brew the best pot of coffee in a home pot.  Brewing it right helped a lot, but it’s still insufferable.  I was adding… oh, 4, 5 teaspoons of sugar, and who knows how much half and half, and sometimes cocoa powder.  And I’m still holding my nose while drinking it.  Luckily for me, all the research I’ve done tells me I’m only supposed to keep coffee about a week before it goes stale.  So I have an excuse to try again.

Having done my reading, my next purchase is going to be the highly acclaimed Eight O’Clock 100% Colombian.  It’s been very highly rated, and is cheap.  The medium roast should allow me to taste the flavor of the beans and have that yummy smell I was expecting.  I hope so, because I’m actually leaning on the freeze-dried instant coffee I bought to make those first frappes lately.  And, sad to say, thanks to my need for caffeine, I’m starting to like the instant stuff.  It only takes one packet of Truvia or spoon of sugar and a spoon of half and half to be palatable.

So, all of you coffee experts, help!  Lay your best tips on me.  I’ve got to do something, before all my efforts at becoming a coffee snob actually turn me into someone who only likes junk coffee.

Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that’s not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

“Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read,” Grant says. “You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read.”

This makes me so sad.  Kids don’t get enough reinforcement on the joy of reading.  Also, as someone who just had kids leaving that age group, most of those newer “how to read” shows on PBS are terrible. The only notable exception I can think of is Between the Lions, which bridges the gap between the classic how to read show, Sesame Street and the niche Reading Rainbow filled fairly well.  The next best, Super Why and Word Girl, have served as mostly mediocre entertainment to my children.  I guess it’s just a good thing I didn’t rely on the television as a teacher.

Over the past week I heard a lot of talk about how NASA is failing to capture the imaginations of adults and youth alike.  Most of the people at these conferences had a vested interest in NASA, so they were looking to rekindle the pioneering spirit of Americans.  My daily interactions confirm the lacklustre image that human spaceflight has taken on lately.  More and more often I’m hearing people rant about how we need to get rid of that “waste of a space program.”  This, from Alabama natives — who have cell phones in their pockets, who use the Internet daily, and probably ate a microwaved meal or two in the last 24 hours!  It’s becoming a more mainstream, accepted viewpoint that NASA is utter frivolity.

Now, I do understand there are valid concerns with how money is being spent, and what goals the government and private industry should play.  When we’re talking about health care, no one (well, almost no one) starts shouting about how we don’t need doctors anyway, do they?   When we argue about education, even those people who would abolish the Department of Education still believe in the value of education.  They just don’t want it dictated by the government.  But with human spaceflight, people will skip arguing those issues and start arguing that humans have no business leaving our atmosphere, and everything we need to do can be done with robots, end of story.  The status quo is just fine, thankyouverymuch, why do we have to push forward any further?  Unfortunately, when people start talking in such terms, I tend to shut them down before they can get very far.  While I’m glad that my passion is evident, I really would like to understand why people feel that way.

It exasperates me that 40 years ago NASA’s work was our shining achievement, but now they’ve fallen largely out of favor.  It’s not a matter of squandering money, either.  Unlike most government spending, NASA’s work has paid for that investment hundreds of times over in returns to the quality of life of the people.  Working on a shoestring budget, NASA has continued to do wonderful work that outstrips their own projections by years and years.  Look at the shuttle!  We’ve made do with equipment that is far past it’s prime, and people are suggesting that we still try and extend the life of the shuttle a few more years.  That kind of thrift is extraordinary, but we take it for granted now.  NASA’s exceptional track record is the reason, yet it’s vilified consistently and incorrectly as a boring, wasteful program that does nothing for anyone but a few academics in ivory towers.

Is it a breakdown of the PR machine? Are people frightened?  Or just plain unimaginative? 35 years of not leaving Earth’s orbit?  Bored now?  Unable to see past the next decade?   I imagine all of those factors are in play, as well as a disenchantment in general brought on by economic downturns.  Whatever it is, my children don’t need to be coaxed into understanding how important space exploration is.  They see it naturally, without any (intentional) proselytizing on my part at all.  We look into the beautiful black openness of the skies and see possibilities and hope.  Listening to that kind of negativism and lack of vision always just strengthens my resolve to want to be a part of those who get us out there into the stars.

“TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. The service analyzes your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates. It also works best on accounts that are operated by a single user and use Twitter in a conversational manner, rather than simply a content distribution platform. For more information read the blog post or follow the creator Dan Zarrella“

Hmmm… very enlightening.  Don’t judge me!

I’ve experienced firsthand being the slaughtered goose. The last paying job I had was as a coordinator for a local restaurant. I believed in the company, and took pride in my job, despite the fact that it was only a part time gig that was to help stretch the budget until money wasn’t so tight. My employer respected me, and even though there were tense times, I was given raises and excellent evaluations. Then, as is normal in the hospitality industry, management shifted.

My new store manager inherited a staff that was hardworking, with a surprisingly low turnover rate for being a restaurant. Immediately, he started changing things, without explaining the whys or listening to anyone’s input. When people tried to explain to him how things worked he would simply answer that he had 20+ years experience, what could we tell him?  I remember distinctly trying to tell him he had staffed the entire restaurant wrong on a weekend. I gently tried to explain to him that Birmingham, AL runs its fall Saturdays around Auburn and Alabama football, and that he had placed his light crew on the wrong shift. We would be slammed when the games weren’t playing, and dead when they were. He told me he had looked at the previous years traffic for that weekend, and it told a different story — we would be busy in the evening. I asked him had he compared it to the football schedule. He scoffed and said, “Like that matters. It never did in Atlanta, and that’s only an hour away. I think I know more about both managing a restaurant and football than you do.”

Yes, oh Great One. Of course my prediction was right! The kitchen and the waitstaff crashed during the predicted rush. This was just one example of the way he treated his employees who were familiar with the customer base, and the restaurant, on a daily basis.

I tried to ignore him, and do my job to the best of my abilities despite him. After all, this was a part time job, just to make ends meet, right? I didn’t need all of that drama, and he wasn’t worth my time.  Finally, so many people quit that he began overworking me (“I know you’re supposed to be part time, and this is 12 days of work in a row, but you’re one of the ONLY people who can do it!”) I couldn’t avoid him anymore.  In addition, he continued to show me very little appreciation or respect.  I got frazzled, and began losing my temper more often.  I wasn’t seeing my family enough.

Eventually, I asked for a raise to compensate for it all.  There was a lot of drama involved, because he did some very underhanded things that were against company policy.  But I was prepared to negotiate, because I really believed in this restaurant.  I felt bad for my manager, too, as he was having personal issues that he certainly made no secret of, and was dealing with a floundering restaurant. I really did not click with the guy, but I tried to show him compassion and work it out.

Then he laid the killing blow on this goose’s neck.  We were almost to a meeting place.  He had said a lot of things, some of which I appreciated and others that reminded me that there was no drug testing at my job and maybe he was just on crack.  Then he told me, “You see, the thing is, we’re just people, but this place will go on even if you quit.  This restaurant, this business, is bigger than you.  It’s bigger than me.”

!!!!

He had already told me I was replaceable, which I had conceded.  Other people could do my job — most of them not as well, but I wouldn’t end the restaurant if I walked out.  I accepted that.  But I value myself way higher than any place where people go to eat, drink, and be merry.  I’m a person.  However anyone would value an organization above the individuals that comprise it boggled me.  I even made him repeat it, and asked did he really believe that.  He did.  If he thought he was smaller than a restaurant, more power to him.  But I personally, am much more valuable than that.  I said so and left, completely at peace with my decision.

Stephen Covey tells us that “the PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.“  That store manager didn’t last much longer than I did, but he managed to drive quite a few quality employees off before he came to a “mutual decision with management that it was in both parties best interest that he resign.”  Today, that restaurant is doing just fine, much better even, without him. I’m sure he’d somehow think that only proved his point.  I’m just not that tiny.

I’ve heard of other numbers having followers. I’ve heard there are many people who believe that seeing 11:11 means that the universe is trying to reveal something.  I found that idea very fascinating for a while, but I think the universe must not have anything very special to tell me just yet, since I never randomly look up and see elevens anywhere.  I know several people whose favorite number is 7.  Others pick 13, just to buck the system. But 47?!  47 is my number, I’d always felt it was unique.  Not so much.

Cruising the internet last week, I came across a link to Awkward Family Photos.  As I was giggling my way through the pages of the album, I saw that 47 apparently is an awkward number.  I had to read the comments on that one. They pointed me to the 47 Society’s webpage.  Disappointingly, it appears to be inactive, but I was intrigued, and kept researching.

According to the Ponoma College website, “In 1964, Professor of Mathematics Donald Bentley proved that all numbers are equal to 47.” I feel so vindicated, because that’s exactly how I use it!  Now I’ll know I’m not really exaggerating, as 47 is accurate at all times.

Furthermore, the fascination with the number 47 infected the Star Trek universe.  The number 47 has featured prominently in episodes from The Next Generation’s fourth season forward, because of writer Joe Menosky.  He is a Ponoma graduate, and wrote for TNG, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.  The inclusion of 47 in these series has been tracked obsessively.  Rick Berman was a fellow writer during some of these episodes, and joked about the inclusion, “47 is 42, corrected for inflation.”  Squee!  A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference wrapped up in a shiny Star Trek coating!

I really wonder now if my subconscious got some programming from watching so much Star Trek, or if it’s truly just coincidental.  Will I turn into this guy?

Having someone in a video that purports to celebrate our geek culture say that they don’t play D&D, like playing an RPG is something to be ashamed of, is profoundly offensive to me, because I play D&D. In fact, it’s the chief reason I am a geek. D&D isn’t anything to be ashamed of, it’s awesome. I don’t recall seeing that in the script I was given, and if I had, I never would have agreed to be part of this project.

I loved the idea of creating a video that celebrates our culture and shows that we’re proud to be in it. That’s what I thought this would be, but I feel like we ended up with some kind of self-promoting internet marketing thing that plays right into established stereotypes, and hopes that The Cool Kids will let us hang out with them.

I am a geek. I have been all my life, and I know that those guys are nothing like me and my friends. If we’re going to celebrate and embrace geek culture, we should have geeks leading the effort, not popular kids who are pretending to be geeks because it’s the easy way to get attention during the current 15 minute window.

I’ll admit, even though I enjoyed the video, that bit rubbed me the wrong way.  And I did cut out a snarky sentence that my proofreader commented on wherein I had been a bit judgmental about the poseurs.  Certainly, I don’t want to be a hypocrite, implying that newcomers aren’t welcome.  I gladly cut it out, because my overall joy overshadowed the rough edge of jade that tried to poke through.

Maybe I really am a hypocrite, though.  I know I tend to dichotomize nerd from geek.  My husband and I have discussed this many times, because he isn’t a nerd, and I’m not really a geek.  The difference would be simply picking nits to most people, and clearly the two groups are fairly fluid socially.   He was on the football team in high school, which is auto-disqualification for nerd.  “Nerd” is a badge you have to earn.  Nerds put in some hard time learning to accept who they are, and choosing to stay true to themselves.  As an example, I remember breaking the curve on many math tests.  My teacher even made a point of it, holding up my test as proof that she had taught everyone the material adequately.  That history of mortification and social stigma doesn’t just appear with a lot of gadgets and a lot of followers on twitter. So, if someone had made that exact same video, but claiming all those people were “nerds,” I know I’d have been rubbed the wrong way.  But mostly this video was about techy people, and I don’t identify as strongly with that label.

Of course everyone knows that MC Hammer and Shaq aren’t real geeks! The geeks know it, the cool kids know it, and they know it.  But if they want to play in our sandbox, then a lot of cool things can happen.  Maybe they’ll learn from a new point of view and quit stigmatizing some of the very people that make the world go round.  Social media, and things that were previously “geeky” and bringing them into the mainstream really helps us all out, doesn’t it?  That’s part of why I like Big Bang Theory, because yes, the guys are quirky and socially awkward, but they’re also awesome!  Geek culture isn’t ever going to genuinely be co-opted by the mainstream.  I do think it’s actually pretty awesome that for the moment, being a geek is a badge of honor.  To see some of the cool kids trying to jump on the geek bandwagon just tickles me.