The Northward Contrail

Random randomness

Last week was refreshing, but this week I'm back in the salt mine, and it's one of the crazy parts of the year, and things are starting to stack up a little.  So, in lieu of any Really Deep Thoughts today, some random Internet silliness I've enjoyed:

-- Looking for fine dining?  Try Hamm and Buble.

-- Titanic, as re-imagined by a certain entertainment megacorporation.

-- And because there's a place on the Interweb for everything, a website devoted to game show pilot episodes (industry lingo for the "proof-of-concept" shows done for networks or sponsors). 

Glass houses

I grew up surrounded by trucks.  Not just pickup trucks, but big trucks.  Our dad drove trucks as part of his work, so my brother and I were riding on 18 wheels from the time we were, as they say, knee-high to a grasshopper.  (If I had a dollar for every mile I spent in the cab of an R-600, I'd never have to work again.  Man, those were fun days.  And, yes, there's another Jim Rockford parallel with my life: a dad who drove trucks.) 

It was also the 1970s, the heyday of Smokey and the Bandit and Movin' On and Convoy (the song, and then the movie) and what not, when CB radio was the big thing and "10-4, good buddy!" and "What's your 20?" were commonplace.  It was everywhere: in the music, on television, in the toy stores (care to guess how many of these types of things my brother and I built?) and elsewhere.

So whenever there was something truck-themed on television, we'd watch.  Movin' On was a staple, and we liked it in our home.  (We never did warm up to B.J. and the Bear, I think because it was a bit silly and because it was a bit too pretty-boy for our tastes.  Though I think we did watch Sheriff Lobo when it became its own show.)

Back then, the trucking movie that was most widely seen was when ABC's prime-time movie series would show White Line Fever with Jan-Michael Vincent.  Back then, it seemed ABC would show it two or three times a year.  We'd watch.  But a couple scenes would terrify me as a kid.  One was when Slim Pickens would get killed.  But nothing could match the stark raving terror I'd feel when this scene played.  Now I can watch it and laugh, but back then, it scared me to death, and I'd have to turn my head and close my eyes.  Go figure.

Pop goes the culture

Whilst traveling about the Interwebs lately, I've come across more interesting places that excel in the purpose of killing time.  Here you go:

:: Letters of Note, a place for the display of unique correspondence.  There are some real gems there, everything from the famous letter that started the "Yes, Virginia" tradition to dispatches from Presidents, celebrities, authors, and common folk in uncommon moments. 

:: The Kisseloff Collection.  Jeff Kisseloff wrote one of my favorite books, The Box, an oral history of American television's first four decades that's packed with great stories, and he's also written numerous other books and articles.  This blog is a place for him to display other things he's come across, and to discuss stories and display materials that couldn't fit into his books.  Be warned that a few of the things he's found can be a bit stark, and Kisseloff has a decidedly leftist bent, so if those kinds of things are issues to you, be advised.  On the other hand, some of the exhibits are downright priceless, like these 1948 notes from the NBC censor.   

:: Finally, while a lot of people go ga-ga over the Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am, this website is dedicated to the Pontiacs dearest to my heart.  It's no end of fascinating, especially since I'm planning to build models of a couple of the Rockford Firebirds.  (Perhaps I'll even have the little portable printing press sitting in the back seat so 1:25 scale Jim Rockford can print phony business cards?  It could happen!)

It's bound to happen someday

Okay, when it comes to certain things in which I'm interested, I can get slightly obsessed.  (Don't parse the grammar in that sentence, please.  I beg you.)  I'll be the first to admit it.  Those who know me also know this.  For instance, my friend with whom I met up in Seattle last year has heard me go on and on about "Queenie," the VC-137B at the Museum of Flight.  It's almost become a running joke.  I just hope that, someday, this doesn't happen during one of our conversations:

Under review

If I could step out of my reluctance to stick my head out a little in this life, there's several things I'd love to do.  One is that I'd love to submit product reviews to shopping websites.  Not just any reviews, mind you, but really interesting reviews.  Examples: some for an especially good duplex socket, and these for a Family Circus collection. (Hat tip to the always wonderful Warren for the first link.)

Happy fun reading for Friday

In lieu of any content of my own (which wouldn't be interesting, anyway, given how little I've accomplished the last couple days), some things written by others:

:: Reflections of a former sports nut on why he quit.  I know how this guy felt.  I used to be the kind who would be genuinely dejected when my favorite team didn't do well, and then one day I said "enough."  Now I watch it more for amusement than anything else.  (And when a team I don't like does well, I remind myself that, regardless of what happens, I still gotta get up and go to work the next day.  It does wonders for my perspective.)

:: Happy fun reading about a tour of a Titan II silo and the security measures meant to keep from blowing ourselves up unless it was the real deal.  This makes great bedtime reading.

:: And, since I'm fascinated by evangelists, here's an interesting take on Oral Roberts, who was finally called home this week, and his influence on modern evangelism.

The mission statement

The older I've gotten, the more I've noticed that mission statements are taking over the world.  I'm not sure why that is.  I've had to wrestle with mission statements at work, and they are no fun.  Especially when you get a bunch of academics together.  It's possible to spend hours going back and forth on a mission statement and getting very little accomplished, all while you try to work together to hammer together what usually turns out to be a rather spectacular, distended collection of phrases and clauses to sum up what it is you're supposed to do. 

(The really fun part?  All the time you spend putting together the mission statement is that much less time you spend on those things you describe in your mission statement.  I wonder what a mission statement committee would have as its mission statement.  Is it possible to have a mission statement for a mission statement?  Oh, crap, I wish I hadn't said that.  Now somebody's going to read this, and that will become the next big managerial craze.)

It's not just at work that you find mission statements.  You see them hanging on restaurant walls and in menus.  When you join a club, even at the local chapter level, you see mission statements, and the inevitable debates come out of it.  Can we do this or that?  Well, it's not in our mission statement, so I don't know if we can or should.  I'm aware of the "good fences make good neighbors" value of mission statements, yes, but sometimes I wonder if they don't exist for their own sake.

I've never really defined a mission for this website, and I don't plan to.  For one, it would be too much like work if I did.  Second, how would I build fences around it?  I like the freedom to explore any area I wish, to post what I'm thinking, to share with you the things I've found that make my life more vivid. 

Back when I first started publicly blogging in earnest a couple years back, it was when I was going through flight training, and I tried to keep the emphasis on aviation-related matters.  That ran out of steam for several reasons.  For one, I really didn't have anything original to say.  There are so many other bigger and better websites about flying out there, written by people who know more than I ever will and who could run circles around me.  Of course, the biggest crimp in it was that time and finances called a halt to my flight training.  That was both a practical roadblock, and an emotional one.  It literally hurt to write about flying when I couldn't any longer.  (Part of why Pam from the American version of The Office resonates with me on a very deep level is that her frustrated dream of taking art classes and becoming an artist reminds me, in so many ways, of my similar efforts with aviation.)

But a few months later, I picked blogging back up, mostly as a lazy way to display some of the artifacts in my collection.  I started writing about other things that interested me, and eventually re-used the old blog's name and URL.  (It was already paid for, and it was easier than coming up with something new.)  And then the site kept going.  How do I write a mission statement for all that?  Easy.  I don't.  To me, a mission statement in this kind of off-duty context would just put limitations on something that's about not having limitations.

Oh, crap.  That almost sounded like a mission statement.

Artifacts

A few things I've found or seen over the last week have stuck with me.  They all have to do with the media and big moments.  I figure I'll work with them in chronological order, so here goes:

:: First, 71 years ago last week was the "War of the Worlds" broadcast.  The story's been told and re-told again and again, and there's much out there in the way of fact, myth and legend about it.  Anyone who knows anything about broadcast history is well familiar with it.  I've listened to the tapes of it over and over again, and know the broadcast pretty well, down to the pauses and intonation and all the little eccentricities.  Or, at least I thought I did.  Seems recent discussion on a listserv to which I subscribe has brought to my attention a second recorded version.  The listmaster's blog has a post offering one version as a podcast, and it's my understanding the other version will be available soon.  This blog's worth watching, and I'm eager to get the "other" version when it's available.  It may not differ that much from the one I already know, but I am a completist and all that, so bring it on, I say.

:: Second, if you're a Mad Men addict like I am, you know this week's episode dealt with a certain watershed event in the nation's history (and, considering how well-trod that event has been, handled it about as well as one could). It's raised the question about if real-life weddings did indeed go on as planned that mournful weekend.  The New York Times "City Room" blog investigated, and the findings are very interesting.

(Bonus link: Courtesy of OfficeTally, here's a link to a slideshow with a somewhat facile, but still very interesting and amusing, matchup of Mad Men characters with their Office counterparts.)

:: Finally, next week's installment of 30 for 30 will be about "Jimmy the Greek" Snyder, one of my favorite now-forgotten oddball characters from my childhood sports-viewing memories.  He's somebody I grew up with (since Sunday NFL games were required viewing at our weekly family dinners at my grandparents' house), so I am really looking forward to this one, and I know the footage will bring back an awful lot of memories. 

Music, memories, fun and you

I was driving to work the other morning and was doing my usual despondent flipping around my radio presets.  I say "despondent" because so often, so little is worth listening to.  There's a rather juvenile yukfest that's on some of those stations, but I have no interest in their snottily partisan bits, their shopworn music playlist, or their affinity for cracking themselves up.  Other stations are little better; few seem to realize that some of us just want some really good music without being forced to laugh at toilet jokes or saccharine "rise and shine!" antics.  At best, I want something that's as grouchy as I am, or at the very least, I want good music with a minimum of talk.  (My vote is often for "grouchy."  Bring back Hughes Rudd from the dead.  Put him on the radio.  That's what I want to wake up to.)

(By the way, I know I could listen to NPR.  But in the mornings, I don't want to listen to much talk.  Plus, I have all the rest of the day to be immersed in current events.  The last thing I really want is to be hit between the eyes with more current events, which invariably means bad news.  My response to most things I hear in the news now is a despondent "Oh, man, they wouldn't do that, now, would they?")

But the other morning, I was playing with the presets and caught the last minute or so of "Walkin' on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves (by the way, given what happened a couple decades later, you wish they could go back and tweak what eventually became a doubly-unfortunate name).  I mentioned the other day how certain songs bring back certain memories for you.  In this case, "Walkin' on Sunshine" makes me think of the first time I met the man who became my beloved.  It was the end of the trip, and we'd said our goodbyes earlier that morning.  I was sitting aboard a 767, and we were stuck in a protracted ground hold, just idling while the backed-up traffic came in.  I was listening to the in-flight audio over those stethoscope-style plastic headphones, and one of Delta's audio channels that month was devoted to music of the 1980s. 

Now, let me set this up even further.  At the time, I was getting over a broken heart.  A month before, I'd had my heart broken when the realization hit me that someone I'd really flipped for didn't feel the same for me; he wanted to just be friends with shared interests.  I had a rather heartbroken trip back home, gotten my grief out and all that.  Then I decided that, dammit, I'd build a very happy independent life for myself.  No guy?  No problem.  It's just that much more freedom, I decided.

That was the backdrop that Tuesday morning as "Walkin' on Sunshine" came on.  I'd been amused by the song because David Letterman used to have it as a campy backing track during the mid-show film segments showing him and Paul Shaffer having a grand day out.  This time, though, I half-listened to the lyrics.  I remembered the fun I'd had over the previous few days.  I thought of how well he and I had gotten along.  And suddenly I was experiencing the same thing Janeane Garofalo used to talk about: when an abandoned puppy looks at you with those sad eyes, that same sinking feeling that the life you'd built for yourself is about to be turned upside down because you've opened your heart, and your life, to another creature.  "I have a dog now!"  (Followed by several expletives.)

So, yeah.  I wouldn't trade the last several years for anything, but I still can't hear that song without thinking about my feeling that morning: "I have a boyfriend now!" (Followed by several expletives.)

The kicker: I didn't know it when the trip started, but the draggy feeling and sore throat I had at the beginning of the trip was influenza incubating within me.  It erupted two days in, when I woke up with a 101-degree fever.  Two days later, I felt better, though I should have bought stock in the parent company of Kleenex.  So, as our 767 began its ascent, I laughed as the music channel started playing "Sloop John B."  Followed by the theme song from the movie M*A*S*H.  (For those of you who don't know, it's a song called "Suicide is Painless.")  Now that's a song you really want to hear while you're tens of thousands of feet in the air in a speeding, pressurized tube, no?  (And, given the events of the following year aboard two other 767s, really unfortunate.)

Caffeine and you: Partners in freedom

I'm in the office much too early this morning.  A bunch of things happened. For one, I was up before 2:30 this morning, thanks to a dream that weirded me out.  That was bad enough, but it caused a cascade effect in my brain, and the more I was lying there in the dark, the more the weird thoughts cascaded.  Plus, the clock was bearing down on me, and the more I knew that wake-up time was coming, the harder it was for me to sleep.  And there were some things related to work that were chewing on me, too.  The "shut up, brain" command wasn't working, so I finally gave up, ate a too-early breakfast and came in early.  Now I'm sitting here pouring caffeine down my throat, battling that scuzzy, bleary feeling that comes from not having been able to sleep.

(Note: This is one source of friction between me and my students.  More often than not, my students, in a similar situation, would blow off the day's classes.  Plus, they'd come up with some kind of story full of more holes than a block of Swiss cheese.  That grinds my gears, for as a professional, I know I have a responsibility to be here, no matter how little sleep I've had, no excuses short of being physically ill.  I don't want to be here, but it's my duty.)

At least today is scheduled to be a short day.  I hope I haven't thrown my luck off in so saying.