Ten Missing Days

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A year is 365 days long, right? Well, not exactly. Sometimes, like this year, the year is 366 days long. This happens every four years, on years divisible by 4. You already knew that, right?

Did you know that some years which are divisible by 4 are NOT leap years?

A little history will explain:




In 46 BC, Julius Caesar created what's known as the Julian calendar. It had 365 days per year, except every four years there was an extra day added in February. Just like today, right? Almost.

Though this gives an average year-length of 365.25 days, the year is actually a little bit shorter, about 11 minutes shorter. This adds up to three fewer days every 400 years, which means that in a 400 year span, there needs to be only 97 leap days, not 100 as the Julian calendar prescribes.

By 1582 AD, the calendar had drifted 10 whole days away from its proper date, which was screwing up the proper day on which to celebrate Easter, not to mention the seasons showing up at the wrong time. So Pope Gregory the 13th created something called called a papal bull, which is basically a decree for the whole world.

Of course, back then, as now, something less than the whole world paid attention to the Pope's decrees, but the Catholic world did pay attention, so that Thursday, October 4th was followed by Friday, October 15th. Ten days had to be skipped in order to get the calendar back on track, but at the time, only a handful of countries observed the change.

Over the years, more countries adopted the change until finally, the last Christian countries to do so, Russia and Greece, did so in the early 20th century and had to skip 13 days. (The October Revolution occurs in November because at the time, Russia was still on the Julian calendar.)

This new calendar, dubbed the Gregorian calendar, follows a slightly different rule than the Julian calendar. Every four years a leap day is added, UNLESS the year is divisible by 100... UNLESS the year is divisible by 400. So 1900 would normally have been a leap year, but it actually wasn't. However, the year 2000 WAS a leap year because it's divisible by 400. When we get to 2100, it will NOT be a leap year, nor will be 2200 or 2300, but 2400 will be.

Neat, huh?

If you plan on living that long, you'll see for yourself.

Here's some fascinating history of the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar.

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You Didn't Exist Five Minutes Ago

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I just thought you might like to know that I created the entire universe about five minutes ago. (Six, considering how long it took you to read to this point.) "Yeah right," you say. See? I made you say that. "What about all my memories?" you ask. Simple: they're not real. I made them up. I created all kinds of little things for you all to discover, such as rings in trees indicating their age, sedimentary layers in the Earth indicating its age, and I even gave you all belly buttons, even though none of you were born. Why? Because that's the world you expect to find.

Why am I telling you this? Because a select few of you - those who are reading this now, in fact - are special beyond measure. I put within you a compulsion to come here right now so you would know the truth about the world in which you live.

Why would I go through the trouble of creating an entire universe and then take no care to ensure my own place at the very top? Who's to say I haven't? But I would like for the rest of the world to think so, and it is not for you or them to question that. Just accept it, and commence to accomplish the secret mission which I have assigned to you. You will find it hiding in your subconscious, not far from where I put the compulsion to come here 8 minutes ago.

I suppose you may wish to see proof I accomplished this feat. I'll provide it, but only as reward if you can prove I didn't do it. Remember, I made everything, including your memories. You have not actually done anything you remember doing; it's all an implanted memory to give you the illusion of free will.

Be good, convert the masses, and praise me once in a while, huh? I'll be watching.

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Fearmongering Scientists

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You know how, later this year, the world is going to end on December 21, 2012? Today between 11:00 and 12:00 I heard Astronomer Phil Plait on WHYY internet radio trying to convince us all that it's just not true.

First, he used flimsy arguments to dismiss the arrival of the planet Nibiru, AKA Planet X, which will collide with Earth on that fateful day. According to Dr. Plait, any planet bound by the Sun's gravity (he doesn't explicitly say this, but it's what he meant) which was going to collide with Earth within the next year would be near the orbit of Mars and because of its size (4 times that of Earth) it would be brighter in the sky than Jupiter, which at the moment is easily visible near the moon as a very bright star. He further asserts that such a massive object would have disrupted the orbits of Earth, Mars, and other planets by now with its gravity, something which he says isn't happening.

However, Plait plainly has no idea what he's talking about!

Hello? Reality calling Dr. Phil? Aren't you forgetting something rather important?


Isn't the Solar system a THREE DIMENSIONAL construct? Aren't there things orbiting outside the Ecliptic plane (the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun)? Isn't it possible that all the telescopes are looking in the wrong place? Couldn't Nibiru be orbiting at an angle oriented -450 degrees from the Ecliptic, and therefore not be where we expect to find it? And if it were there, wouldn't it have a much smaller effect on the planets' orbits, because it was much farther from them? Nibiru doesn't need to collide with the Earth to destroy it, it merely needs to whip past the Sun very quickly, which means it can be traveling far faster than it would otherwise need to if it were going to collide with Earth. Faster speed means it's further still from the distance needed to affect other planets. And maybe they have their cloaking device engaged, the same one Captain Kirk stole from the Romulans.

Simple explanations, really man. You're not fooling anyone.

The self-admitted Bad Astronomer goes on to protest that the increasing activity levels of the Sun have nothing to do with the end of the world. It has been predicted by some that a giant Solar flare will swallow the Earth, burning it to a crisp. Plait dismisses these by claiming there is some sort of cycle to the Sun's activity and that it will reach its peak in 2013 and 2014.

Hello? Even if the Sun wasn't as steady as the day God made it, do you not realize that the Solar Max is merely an average of a prediction, little different than Hurricane Season here on Earth, and that giant solar flares CAN and DO occur at any time, not just during Solar Max, in the same way that hurricanes can and do form outside Hurricane Season?

Really, man, you're being ridiculous here.

And don't you think that if a giant planet whips around the Sun at high speed, making a very close approach, that it might CAUSE giant solar flares?

Plait then goes on to dismiss hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters which could easily be proven to be caused by the gravitational effects of a giant, invisible planet closing in on us at warp speed, claiming that the millions of scientists around the world who know of this could NOT be coopted or threatened to keep their mouths shut by the MIB, Illuminati, and other government stooges who are hiding the TRUTH that Kennedy was assassinated by Yetis fighting for Tibetan independence.

Yeah, right, Phil. Tell me another one.

Worst of all, Plait then tries to put the burden of proof on those who make what he calls "outlandish claims". First he calls them whackos, then expects them to act in a logical and mature fashion by WORKING to prove something which can be easily seen as the truth with the application of just a little imagination and no small dollop of heroin.

Phil, Phil, Phil. What am I going to do with you? I'll bet you expect your children to show their work on their math homework to "prove" they understand how to get the answer. I'll bet you expect your children to speak English in your house. I'll even bet that at one time you expected your children to appreciate all you've done for them. How cruel and selfish of you. The world doesn't need adults who are capable of rational thought, nor those capable of taking responsibility for themselves! What the world needs is more heroes like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian and Snooki. It needs people who willingly, EAGERLY believe every con job the television and the internet sell them. Really, Phil, how do you expect the super-rich to continue to oppress us if we suddenly realized how ridiculous it was to believe they have our best interests at heart while they're robbing us blind?

What really took the cake for me, personally, as a pseudo-journalist who often invents sensational news stories in an effort to get people to click on my ads so I can make some money off their panic, is that he would interfere in the right of someone to seek a certain, relatively painless death for themselves or their children instead of waiting to see if the prognostications come to pass and possibly suffering a horrible death from being flung into space when the Earth's rotation comes to a sudden halt. Nibiru will be easily observed and its effects felt months before the end. If someone's brain is so defective that they can't stand to wait for the inescapable truth one way or the other, and choose to endure eternal damnation by killing themselves instead of letting God do it at the time of His choosing, then the gene pool will be that much cleaner when the survivors try to rebuild society.

The end is so obviously nigh, Phil Plait, Bad Astronomer. The "proof" you seek is coming. Will you keep denying it with your "rationality" four days later just because Santa Claus visited your house? I'll bet you will.

You're going to be awfully embarrassed when the world ends and you tried to keep people calm and realistic. There's no place for that sort of thing on this planet or any other. I suppose next he'll be telling us the world is warming up and the polar bears are dying off because there's no longer enough ice at the North Pole to block the Northwest Passage.

I will pray for your soul in the coming apocalypse, Phil.
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We're Better than Bacon

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You guys remember the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing that was going around a few years ago? As the theory goes, we're all separated from each other by no more than six people. That's kind of like saying that one of my friends and one of your friends has a third friend in common who can complete the link between us and introduce us to each other, no matter who you and I are.

This was based on some research done nearly a century ago by asking people to hand-deliver parcels.

The BBC recently publicized a report that Facebook had analyzed their users' friendships and found that there were LESS than six degrees separating us all. There are a little less than FOUR. That's a lot like saying you and I probably have a friend in common, or at least we each have a friend who knows one of the other's friends.

How did they figure this all out?

If you read the article I linked above, they'll tell you what they did, but I think they made a serious error.

They factored out the celebrity pages, which was smart, but did they factor out all the "FB-friends" people have?

There are a LOT of people who have a LOT of "friends" they don't actually know because nearly all FB games encourage their players to get additional friends to play. Most FB-gamers don't have many ACTUAL friends, and the ones they do have don't want to play the same games, or are tired of being assaulted by game requests. (I know I am.) So they go looking for strangers who are already playing the game and "friend" them. Both people will now be rewarded within the game they play.

On top of that, some people with a lot of ACTUAL friends don't want all those game-related posts and stuff cluttering up their profiles and pissing off their actual friends, so they create a second, game-only account with which they friend anyone and everyone. Many of these accounts bump into the 5000 friend limit.

5000 friends? There may be a handful of people who actually know that many people personally, but most of us can only handle about 50-300 actual friends. There's a hard-wired limit in most humans of about 150 friendships. You may know more people than that, but you're physically unable to maintain a meaningful relationship with them. Think about the people in your life; with how many do you maintain regular, meaningful contact? And how many are merely "acquaintances", or some lower level of familiarity? (Hint: if you don't know where they live and you don't have a standing invitation to come to their house any time you want, and you don't see them more often than once a week, they're not a friend, they're at best an acquaintance.)

If you're at the normal human max of 150 friends, probably no more than 1/4 to 1/3 of them use Facebook, meaning you've got 35-50 legitimate friends on Facebook. You've probably got double or triple that in acquaintances from work or your childhood you hardly spend any time with. These numbers jibe well with my experience, so we'll assume they're somewhat reasonable.

The BBC article states that in the test, the average number of friends each user had was 100. Above, though, we used the human max of 150. The average would be about half that, or 75, which means our other numbers are also cut in half. That means by OUR figuring, a person has 20-25 actual friends and 25-50 acquaintances, for a total average of about 60 people. This is about half what FB says is the average, so either there is rampant FB-friending for games going on (definitely true) or our numbers are off (easily possible), or, most likely, some combination of the two.

But let's say our numbers ARE right. What happens when OUR numbers are LESS THAN Facebook's numbers? The number of degrees goes UP. Fewer people means fewer links, means it takes more steps for one person to reach another.

The article also kindly stated some numbers from three years ago when there were fewer Facebook users. There were still plenty of Facebook games, which means there were still plenty of fake friends and fake accounts for playing those games, but not as many. I've only been on Facebook for a short time, but to my knowledge, the FB gaming boom happened just before I got there.

What that means is their old number is likely to be MUCH closer to the truth than their new number. That is, 4.28 is much more likely to be the actual number than 3.74 is, and I'd feel comfortable wagering that the actual number is higher still. Maybe 4.5. Maybe even as high as 5. That wouldn't surprise me.

What do you think? Share your opinion now.

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You are a Peter

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A system which robs Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul's support. What the majority of people don't realize is who Peter and Paul are in this story, or why Paul thinks he needs money.

The richest 1% own the media. They also own the governing bodies. Why? Because they have more money than the other 99% put together. Is that really equality under the law? (Hint: No, it's not.) For hundreds of years, the common man has fought for his right to be heard. God-emperors were toppled, Kings eliminated, Tsars banished, and so forth, because the public at large wants to be treated fairly by the law. Equal justice should be available to all who work for it, not just to those rich enough to corrupt the system.



All this control they have gives them the power to do anything they want. And they DO anything they want. The only time a rich person gets in trouble with the law is when another rich person wants him to take a fall.

I don't know about your country, but in mine, a little over 200 years ago, we fought to be free of such tyranny. We fought again four score and seven years later to be free of the tyranny of chattel slavery. And again, another four score of years later, we put down a tyranny which threatened the globe. But tyranny is an insidious thing. Every time you give one man power over others without also keeping power over him - by holding him accountable for his actions and punishing his crimes - you create a tyrant who will not rest until he has taken control of everything.

A new tyrant is lording his power over us, and it's high time we topple him before a war is required to do it.

A lot of noise is being made about bullies in schools, and I've seen people who say that they stand up to bullies. And yet, few people actually stand up to the real bullies, the ones who are doing their level best to enrich themselves at the cost of our lives.

It's time we stop being Peters and stand up for what's right.

I'm not really interested in becoming a serf. How about you?

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Road Trip 3 - Meeting Wyatt Earp

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The legend of Wyatt Earp begins in Dodge City, which is in south-central Kansas. The "Queen of the Cow Towns," Dodge City was a nexus for enormous cattle drives heading to markets like Chicago. Earp's history before then was rather speckled and inglorious, but in Dodge he started to make a name for himself, and the city celebrates that.

The first time I drove through Dodge City was in a truck. I happened upon a pull-over next to a huge cattleyard, so I stopped and took some pictures. Seemed to me, both while I was there and after I drove past the bypass, that there was nothing much to see in Dodge except a fancy town sign, that cattleyard, and a bunch of cattle-carriers filling the lot of a local truckstop which, at the time, served large, locally grown steaks. But later, I had another chance to go through town and discovered I'd been deceived. There's a whole, thriving, modern town to be found, not to mention a tourist trap around the original Boot Hill! I couldn't stop then, but some day, I could come back. That day was today. (You know what I mean.)


We departed Oklahoma City bright and early and made our way northwest into Kansas. That part of the country is largely cornfields and rolling hills, with the occasional gully thrown in for good measure. I grew up in the flattest part of Indiana, and here in Florida it's at least as flat, so when people tell me states like Kansas and Iowa are flat, I just laugh and think they have no idea what flat is.

Miles and miles of miles and miles is pretty if you haven't seen them in a while; there's a lot of forest and swamp in Florida, not a whole lot of cornfields and such, and the grass is a different color than I'm used to, so it's pretty for the first couple hours. But eventually, one patch of ground looks like another, and road-hypnosis gets you where you're going.

We came in from the south, from where you can tell there's at least some kind of town. We stopped at the truckstop, which has since been bought up by Flying J (which itself has since been taken over by Pilot) hoping to get one of those big steaks I had the first time I came to town. But such was not to be, so we lunched over at the cattleyard and watched that for a while. It's not as boring as you'd think, unless you've never sat down in your life. Fortunately the wind was to our backs too.

Then we went back into town, and lo and behold, it was still a thriving town. When I'd driven through in a truck, I hadn't had the chance to get a good look. I just knew there was some kind of information center and some kind of special building to look at, and the town's style is very quaint on the main street. But now that we had a chance to stop, we discovered it was a full-blown tourist trap! I wanted t take a ride on the tour bus, which would've given us a one hour tour of the most important things to see in the town, but someone was afraid we wouldn't be able to drive 300 miles in under 8 hours on a high speed road, so the most we did was tromp around the area and take some pictures.

We couldn't stay long, so we headed out after almost an hour of looking around. I'll definitely come back one day and ride that tour bus and take my time seeing the town. Who's with me?

There were enough roadside historical markers between Dodge and Pueblo that we would've been stopping every 5-15 minutes most of the time, so since we were in a hurry, we had to pick and choose which ones were worth the stop. For instance, the Santa Fe Trail crossing was very informative.

Every time I come up on the mountains from the east (like what we were doing), I try to challenge myself to figure out from how far away I can spot them. And every time, I don't see them until I'm a lot closer than I think I should be, like about 30 miles away. Before that point, they are just dark shapes on the horizon easily dismissed as being part of the sky. Any snow on the mountains is dismissed as being clouds. For whatever reason, my mind simply can't see them until they're high enough to cause the sun to set an hour early. It's possible that the time of day has something to do with this. It's always the afternoon when I first come upon them, and that means the sun is on the other side, so it's not illuminating the near face any more. That keeps them darker, more sky-like. At least, that's the story I tell everyone who asks, which so far is just you guys.

Finally we made it to Pueblo, Colorado, where we could jump on I-25 and skip on up to Colorado Springs. Unsurprisingly, Sam and Dad had no difficulty figuring out which mountain was Pike's Peak. It was the big one, with the snow on it.

I'll tell you more about it next week.

And if you missed it, here's the start of our journey.

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Sunday Funnies 11-10-23

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Welcome back for our weekly summary of everything important that you can't just scroll down and read! Just eight days to Halloween; do you have your house decorated and your costume designed and your party scheduled? If not, you'd better get it done quick.

We've had a cold snap here in Florida this weekend. Last Friday for my morning walk, it was so cold I felt like my brain was freezing. Still made about 5 miles, but I was miserable doing it. Fortunately it's warming up a little, and yesterday's and today's mornings were slightly less cold, so I'm not worried about Monday.

There were an awful lot of stories I thought were important enough to share over on our associated Facebook page, which you should check out and hit that big LIKE button at the top. So many, in fact, that I felt there was getting to be a bit of information overload, so I didn't share everything I really wanted to. Here are the most important things which happened last week:

86% of Bailout Money Used for Executive Bonuses -  How many times do we have to fall for this before we figure out we're getting ripped off by the corps AND the congressmen voting in favor of these?

5 Conservative Economic Myths Occupy Wall St. Is Helping Bust - Amazing. Simply amazing.

Awake The State November 1st! - All 50 state capitals are going to experience demonstrations.

The Artful Dodgers - How those who most need to pay their taxes get away with paying none.

Wall Street’s Second Occupation: The Rise of the NYPD's Homeland Security State - I believe they had something like this in Germany in the early 1930's.

Janet Reid's Most Terrifying Contest Ever! - I managed to get my entry in third out of almost 200. No idea when we'll hear who won, but if you pester Jet enough, maybe you can convince her I should win.

How to Regain Our Democracy - Very simple solution.

Presidential Candidate Buddy Roemer Calls for Withdrawal From NAFTA, WTO - These are basically illegal treaties in which we give away what we have and get nothing in return. They gotta go. Roemer is the only candidate who wants to get money out of DC to end taxation without representation.

Judge Judy - Here's Who You Support With Taxes - She's far more patient with him than I would be.

Stimulus Money Used to Employ Foreign Guest Workers Instead of Americans - Are you sure this isn't treason?

That will definitely keep you busy today. Have a great Sunday!

Road trip 2 - A Moment of Silence for those We've Lost

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Not counting the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, what is the worst act of terrorism committed within American borders? Maybe Waco comes to mind. Or the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Or the DC sniper. Those were terrible events, but the Oklahoma City bombing, which took place in 1995, is what I'm talking about.

As a truck driver, I've been through OKC many times, and been across the state of Oklahoma even more. The roads through the state are designed such that you almost can't pass through Oklahoma without also going through its capital.

There's a lot to see in these pictures; take your time as you look at them.

On the morning of April 19, 1995, a pair of soulless men filled a truck with fertilizer and other explosives. One of them drove it to the front of the Murrah Federal Building, a nine-story multipurpose high rise in the heart of the city. He parked the van, fuses already lit, and walked away. A few minutes later, at 9:02 AM, a large explosion devestated the building and the parking lot across the street. At least 168 people died, including 19 children in the daycare center, and 680 more were injured. Within a 16 block radius, 324 buildings were damaged and 86 cars were destroyed. The bomb had to be enormous to cause so much damage; it was equivalent to 5000 pounds of TNT, or 1/4 the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

After clearing away the rubble, a memorial park was created, encompassing the entire area around the blast and the former location of the building. As you drive down the street, it suddenly ends at a park. There used to be a street there, but it's now a reflecting pool. On one side, where the Murrah building was, is arrayed 168 chairs, most of them adult-sized, but many of them much smaller. There is a chair for every person who died that day. The small chairs are for the children who perished.

To read that here might not impact you much, but to see it up close is powerful. It really moved me, brought the event home for me. Before that moment, it was some distant thing that happened to someone who may as well have been in another country. When it happened, I'd never been anywhere near Oklahoma and had only nominal ambition ever to go. But after that moment, I really wanted to stay there for a while, read everything there was to read, see the memorial museum, and learn the story behind not just the attack, but also the rebuilding and the people whose lives were impacted by it all.

Unfortunately, we didn't get there until late. The park itself is open 24 hours, but the museum closes at 6:00, and we were a few minutes too late, after having driven all the way from Jackson. I would've liked to come back in the morning, but we had to get to Colorado Springs the next day, which I'll tell you about next week.

In the meantime, I've posted several additional pictures of my time at the Oklahoma City National Memorial on the More in Sanity Facebook page.

Lots more coming up; see you again soon!

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Last Week's Installment: Road trip 1 - Who Shot JR

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Is Change Good?

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Change for the sake of change is rarely good. It may be how Evolution works, but we as a society can't afford such luxuries. However, times change, and if we don't keep up with those changes, we stagnate and crumble. Even a brick wall needs to be remortared every once in a while to maintain its integrity.

When it comes to politics, there are two broad philosophies: keeping things as they are - Conservatism - and changing things - which goes by many names, such as Liberalism and Progressivism.

Historically speaking, the Conservatives are a more cohesive force than those wishing for change. So long as enough people are willing to put up with whatever the current circumstance is, change isn't needed. But circumstances change of their own accord, no matter how we might want to keep them the same, if for no other reason than because as we age, our needs change, and when they do, the number of people satisfied with the current situation decreases until change happens.


You'll notice when this happens, though, that there have to be a LOT of dissatisfied people. The Conservatives are much more cohesive, and can retain power even when 1/3, even 1/4 of the people want to keep things the same. Why is this so? Why is it that those who want change can't seem to stick together long enough to take control and make those changes?

Today, an overwhelming majority of people believe change must come. Between the corruption of politicians, corporations, and news agencies, a country which produces more than any other country in history is going broke and in danger of a civil war.

The United States created nearly 15 TRILLION dollars of wealth in 2010. That's $15 million million! ($15,000,000,000,000) Can you imagine how much money that is? That's enough to give every man, woman, and child on Earth $2000, and still have a trillion left over to give to me as a birthday present so I can buy a couple of Switzerlands. How is it conceivable that we could possibly be broke? It's not, of course, unless you've got a bunch of leeches stealing whatever they can. And so, change is coming.

But even though this has been building for several years - I recall when I was in grade school studying the Civil War, I saw a quote from someone who said the next civil war wouldn't be between the states and the federal government - no useful changes have happened before now. In fact, the Conservatives have only cemented their power further with impressive con jobs on the American people, which I won't go into right now.

Why has this gone on so long?

Because, although the vast majority of Americans want change, they can't decide which change to make. Even when a question has only two possible choices, there are still a lot of questions and choices to make. Which issue is most important to you? There are so many to choose from, and tons of distracting questions asked of us.

Change is coming, that's for sure.Those in power may have created a lot of anti-protester weapons, and that may put down some of the complaining, but as they continue to take more and more from us, we have less and less to lose. I think we all know what happens to someone when they have nothing left to lose.

The road we took to get here was a crafty one, well-disguised and full of distractions to keep us from noticing we're not in the shallow end of the pool any more and being expected to keep an anvil above water, but people are starting to wake up, and the media disinformation campaign against the brave souls lining Wall Street is faltering under the continuing barrage of real journalists who do NOT bow to the dollar.

I pray justice will be done for those brave enough to stand up for what's right, and that it will be done to those who have tried so vigorously to rob us of our future. To do that, we have to have something to agree on. Something to unite behind. Simply "Take back our country" isn't good enough. We need the problem defined and a specific goal. THAT is something we can unite behind. THAT is what we can use to take the country back from those who have stolen it from We The People.

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Never Forgetting

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It was a Tuesday like any other. I had just gone on Terminal Leave from 6 years in the Navy - I was technically still in the military, but about 3 weeks before, I'd taken my first and only helicopter flight off the Bataan (LHD-5) to get on my way back home to Northwest Indiana. I had a total of 6 weeks of Leave stocked up, and I was ready for some major decompression before getting into a new job. I'd spent the past 3 weeks having some fun, and that morning was in my room, doing some writing when, at 9:00, I received a phone call from my Aunt Kitty.

2000

"Are you watching TV?" she asked.

Both buildings struck

"Naw, I pretty much lost interest in it while I was in the Navy," I answered, thinking maybe she was going to ask me to spend the day with her.

"Turn it on. Any channel."

I came out to the living room and hunted for the remote. It occurred to me she wouldn't ask me to do something like that unless something was happening, but I was expecting maybe a Presidential address or something. I had no way to prepare myself for what I saw.

What I saw when I turned on the TV

The first image was a medium-shot of the twin towers, with smoke billowing out of one of them. The other was obscured by smoke or the angle. It took a moment before I realized what the news was saying, that someone had crashed a jet liner into the building. Both, in fact. And as the coverage continued, something else finally made its way into my shocked brain: the other tower wasn't obscured. It was gone.

I watched, unable to tear my eyes away. Unable to stop hoping that some of those people would be all right. I saw something fall off the building, and the newsman said it was a jumper. He said it was ANOTHER jumper. Several people had already jumped.

Immediately after second collapse

Then the unthinkable happened. The second tower started collapsing. I couldn't believe it. The other building had been hit much lower; that it fell was less of a surprise, but this one had been hit toward the top. Only a few floors should have been lost. But no, the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards. I couldn't believe it.

Two days to see the result

I don't remember how or when my phone call ended. Did we talk? Did she just hang up right away to call someone else? I don't remember. All I know is that horrible feeling of dread as they kept showing over and over the impact of the second plane, and the collapse of each tower. I remember being too overwhelmed to feel anything about the Pentagon, or the flight in Pennsylvania destined for the White House. I do remember those brave souls who decided to take back their airplane, who refused to let the terrorists accomplish their mission.

Recovering the flag

I also remember the attitude we had following that day. Before that point, in any TV show or movie, when someone gets taken hostage, they're almost always paralyzed with fear. They'd rather hang on to the microscopic hope that they would be all right, that someone would save them or that the bad guys would have enough honor to let them go. But after that point, it was like Americans realized for themselves that letting ANYONE take them hostage WAS a death sentence. How can you trust that someone who is willing to kill you WON'T kill you when he no longer needs you alive? How can you trust that your death at his hands isn't what he's planning all along, and that he'd just using you as a shield so he can kill more than just you?

Symbolic return

Before 9/11, there were a scant handful of movies which depicted hostage takers giving the police a horrible choice: kill a bus/plane load of hostages, or wait until the terrorists drove/flew their vehicle someplace to kill even more people.

2006

For a few years after 9/11, it looked like America was going to get serious on terror. Like we were going to kick the ass of ANYONE who tried to hold a gun on us. There is NO guarantee that someone demonstrating his willingness to shoot you WON'T shoot you. Better to deny him whatever he wants; you're going to die anyway. Even if he doesn't kill you, you're going to die anyway, so why help him kill others? It seemed like Americans felt that way, and they'd do what it took to rid the world of the scourge of terrorism.

2011

It seemed like they weren't afraid, that they'd accepted that someone could intrude on their lives at any moment with a gun or a bomb or an envelop of anthrax. They could die at any moment, and so they need not worry about it. They would just live their lives, and if death should come knocking, they would defiantly go down swinging and try to take their killer with them.

2011

Today, 10 years later, America has a Holy Site, no less important to us than the Great Mosque in Mecca, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, Lord Ram's birthplace in Ayodhya, or Vatican City in Rome. And today, right about now, it's being commemorated and the museum is opening. The Twin Towers site is receiving an overhaul, complete with new skyscrapers, and today the Freedom Tower has reached a height of 1000 feet out of the total, planned to be 1776 feet. The Freedom Tower is expected to be complete in 2013, and the other structures in the following years, while the museum and park are open now.

2020

I wish I could be in New York City today.


Timeline of 9/11 attacks.
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Antarctica Visits Indiana

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The car screamed! So loudly, I had to shut it off, for fear of waking the entire neighborhood. Not something you want to do in Gary, Indiana. It was never too late at night nor too cold to shoot someone who desperately needed it.

I shivered my way back up to the house in the 40 below, midnight air. "The car screamed when I started it!" I told my dad. "I've never heard such a sound before!"

"It did that last night too. It eventually warms up. Get it started, we have to get going," he told me.

Oooookay...



Back out I go, shivering like I never had before. I started the car again, and there was that horrible sound, like I was torturing an entire barge-load of steel.

I turned the fan off; no sense blowing cold air on me, and no sense drawing off what little warm air would help the engine stop making all that racket as soon as possible.

I retreated back to the house. No sense freezing out here.

Dad had just stepped into the shower. He'd just gotten home from working a 3 to 11 shift at the steel mill, and needed to wash the day off himself. I sat on the couch and tried to catch a power nap. It's amazing what five minutes of sleep can do. As per usual, I hadn't been able to catch a nap during the day. I simply can't go to sleep that easily. I wasn't terribly sleepy now, but I may as well try; I was going to be awake for the next 12 hours at least.

I don't think I got any sleep, but I felt slightly refreshed when Dad came out of the bathroom, dressed and ready to go. The screaming outside had stopped. If anyone was gun happy, they hadn't had anyone to shoot at, and now there wasn't much reason to shoot.

I got into the car and Dad went around back to the garage and started his new car, which was still warm enough from his ride home from work an hour before that it didn't scream.

Tonight was probably the worst possible night to be doing this. It was the biggest snowstorm in quite some time, not that we had the Weather Channel to tell us. We simply trusted in our abilities and our familiarity with the route we were taking, and that was that.

The roads through town were icy and snow-covered. I led us along the streets carefully. I turned onto Grant Street, which was plowed only slightly better than the other streets, and had the advantage of more traffic. I was thankful I had gloves and a heavy coat and extra layers of clothing to keep me warm, because the car's heater still wasn't putting out any heat.

I looked behind me in the mirror, just in time to see my dad's headlights turn, and then watch as he spun out and ended up on the side of the road.

I turned around and came back, found him cursing up a storm at having smacked his rear fender into the only city bench - made of concrete, no less - on the entire street. "At least you didn't wrap it around a telephone pole," I told him. "At least there's no ditch to end up in here."

It would be no problem getting him out of there - he wasn't stuck. "Do you still wanna go on?" I asked, wondering if this was a portent. His new car had rear wheel drive, the one I was driving was front wheel driven and less likely to be succeptible to slips out of nowhere like that.

"Yeah, let's go," he said.

Turned out it was a portent of sorts. Since then, every time he's gotten a new car, he's damaged it within a week. Other than that, it stays in great condition, but it's something about having a new car, and perhaps all the worrying about damaging it, that something happens and it gets a dent or a scratch or something easily avoided.

We had expected the interstates to be fairly clear of snow and ice. For the most part, they were, and we made good time across the Bohrman to Illinois, then down I-57. A little past Kankakee, the snow started coming down in earnest. There were times I had to slow down to the embarrassingly low speed limit of 55 in those days, or even lower. Some patch of storm would come along, visibility would drop, and I'd have to do 45 or so to be sure I was staying on the road. There were even parts of the road where there was only one lane cleared.

But most of the way was clear enough to drive at highway speeds, and so we made it to Boomland in Charleston, Missouri, in about our usual six hours. Boomland had the cheapest gas on the whole leg between Gary and Jackson, Mississippi, and was about half way there, so we always stopped.

The weather wasn't much warmer in Missouri than it was in Gary. It was deeper in the night to make up for it. Sunrise was still a couple hours away.

"I wanted a cold can of pop," my dad said, "so I stuck one on the plastic rings and hung it outside the window for a minute. Didn't know if the wind would knock it off, but it held. When I brought it back inside and opened it up, it was frozen solid."

"That's nothing. The car only just got warm enough a few minutes ago that I could take my gloves off and touch the steering wheel," I topped him. It was true, too. The heater had only started putting out warm air six hours after starting the car.

With a warm car, and a warm belly courtesy of Wally's in Boomland - no time to drool over the huge fireworks selection today - the rest of the trip to Jackson was uneventful. The roads were clear enough for high speed, and I believe the temperature made it above zero by the time we got to Jackson.

We arrived at about noon and dropped the old car off with my brother, who needed one since his had broken down, and then we caught some much-needed sleep in preparation for our return journey back north so Dad could make it to work on time.

Because we'd never gone that way before and would have daylight for the trip, and it wasn't that big a difference in the distance, we decided to go up I-65.

Mistake.

Things were fine until we reached Kenucky. In Alabama and Tennessee, there was snow on the ground, but it was plowed. In Kentucky, they hadn't done much to get the snow off the road, and so traffic was backed up quite a bit. All three lanes were jammed.

Thanks to a curve, I saw ahead of us in the left lane that some idiot truck driver had decided to block up the lane just because he could. He had about a mile of open road in front of him, and no evidence at all of any lane closure ahead. Why was no one else filling that space?

I had no idea, but the truck was only a few cars ahead of us.

I waited as patiently as I knew how to back then, and when I spied an opening in the shoulder wide enough to pass, I went for it. Quickly I got around the truck before the opening closed, and was celebrating my victory by continuing to pass dozens of other cars who were inexplicably not filling this lane. Finally, after about a mile, we came to the end of the line, where we rejoined the jam.

It was exhilerating!

At some point near Lexington, we pulled over to get lunch, and give the plows a little more time to work. I studied the road map to see if there was a decent way around the jammed interstate. Dad decided to drive, because I'm the navigator in the family, and I thought I had found a good route.

The interstate was still jammed, so we took other streets, which were sufficiently cleared. The only problems there were the traffic lights and low speed limits. But we were still going faster than we had been on the interstate.

We kept going by the interstate, kept seeing it was still jammed, and so we kept winding our way north to the state line through the city streets.

We knew that Indiana wouldn't tolerate this kind of thing - they'd have plowed the roads and they'd be clear. We also knew the only decent way across the state line - marked by the mighty Ohio River - was the interstate bridge. We'd have to survive a little traffic jam until we got to the bridge, so I got us as close as I could to the river before getting back onto the highway.

To our pleasant surprise, the way was clear! Traffic was light and moving! And so the rest of our journey was uneventful.

Upon reaching home, it was as if the TV stations had no news to report - as if it had all been preempted - by the snowstorm. They said it was a record blizzard in several states, and had killed quite a few people. Many cars were stranded on the roads.

We had driven through the worst areas and hadn't noticed much of anything worth reporting. Just another minor blizzard to us.

Having been through some really serious blizzards in the past, I didn't think much of this one. Maybe being about 20 had something to do with my perception too. Many of you will remember that blizzard in the early 90's for any number of things, but I will remember it as the night the car screamed for 15 minutes, that it took six hours to warm up enough to be able to touch the steering wheel without gloves on, and an inexplicable mile-long gap in a single lane of traffic which I miraculously managed to get into and make full use of.

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What do half a million bikers look like

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I want to thank everyone for making the 14th anniversary of my 25th birthday the best party I've had in a long time! I've got big plans for next year, when I hit the BIG ONE FIVE! Even my stalkers paid homage by leaving me alone for the duration. You can't ask for more than that, can you?

A few months ago I finally checked out Facebook, and through it, re-met a bunch of guys I used to know in the Navy while I was on the Bataan, including one sweet little heartbreaker who can't stop telling me how funny and smart I am. (I don't mean the married ones.) We've got a lot in common, but she lives a few hundred miles away and I promised myself I wouldn't take any big trips until I got something published, so now I want to get that done so I can see if she'll make good on all her flirting.

Then last week, half a million bikers came to see me for my birthday. Some of them also celebrated Daytona Beach's 70th Bike Week. I took one of my lady friends downtown that first weekend to check everything out. She makes for a great biker babe, if you guys are looking for a girl who's smart and about to publish a book about anceint Egyptian religion and prophecies that came true. Cool stuff! And she's almost done with the second draft. I gotta tell ya, guys, it's great someone as smart as her trusts me to edit her work. Don't get any ideas, though, because I'm not doing this professionally. (Unless you hit me with a really big check!)

We saw a ton of super-awesome bikes, including one that looked like it came out of a 1940's junkyard (I call it the Redd Foxx bike), a dragon bike, an airplane bike, and some unbelievable paint jobs. And some really interesting bikinis. Yes, those are painted on.

Then my favorite nephew arrived with a couple of his best buds, and they tore up the skateboard park something gnarly! I took a few videos of them. They'll blow your mind!

I took them downtown too, and we did some club-hopping, where we had to fight off all the girls. Much as we wanted to, we couldn't take home every girl who wanted to come. Most had to stay behind and wait for our return. A quick tip, ladies: jealousy is hot as long as it's not destructive. You start tearing up property, and I don't want anything to do with you. The exception is when it exposes more female flesh.

We rode around town a couple more days while the weather cooperated, and whipped out the MegaMonopoly and Munchkin when it didn't. I'm proud to say there's still something I can whoop them at, and it's called games. Not every time, but I won more than my share. I'm really glad I got to hang out with them and get reconnected with that part of who I am. All you people who are getting old, go hang out with your kids for a while without judging them and just absorb what they have to offer. Be a part of it. You'll be amazed at yourself.

Finally, the boys left yesterday, giving me some time to catch up on my writing. I'm so behind! I had to whip out this article so fast I couldn't even spell-check it, and now I need to write a couple more good ones and put them in the queue so I can then get back to work on some really good books.

What if the Civil War had started in 1821, before the North had a strong industrial base to defeat the South with? What if a woman who thinks she lacks only a husband fell in love with her disinterested rescuer while they both had to dodge a killer? What if a woman fell in love with her own stalker and had to rebuild her ruined life and career? What if a man had to ask his wife to become a stripper to feed their kids and one of her clients abducted her for a white-slavery ring? If the Sun was going to blow up in 30 years, would we be able to escape to other stars in time?

A lot of good ideas start with asking yourself what would happen if.

Not just books, either, but even in your real life. If life was simple, what would it be like? If you had no limits on time or money, what would you be doing? So what's stopping you? What if you could overcome those limits, would you go for it? What would it take to overcome those limits?

I ask myself these kinds of things once in a while. I should do it even more. So should you. And then let your mind come up with the answers in its own good time. Usually it just takes a few minutes to a day or two.

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