Not much to report since last post. Had a quiet dinner at an Irish pub last night - a delicious meat pie. I ordered iced tea and it came sweetened (@#%$!), and it also had the rim salted a bit like a dacquiri, which was interesting. Slowly made it in to the office, had a lunch meeting with some co-workers, and here I am now waiting for the real work to begin this evening.
A few links of interest:
On my walk back to the hotel this afternoon, I stopped outside the hotel for a smoke. While I was there, I was approached by a woman. She told me that her and her alcoholic boyfriend (husband?) had gotten into a fight and he had left her stranded in the city. She needed to get home to her two kids in Chesterton or some such suburb. She already had $15 and the bus ticket would be about $30. I gave her the money. Am I a sucker?
As synchronicity would have it, I ran across an article from Freakonomics when I returned to the hotel entitled How Pure Is Your Altruism?
Mostly it talks about donating to disaster victims, but also:
We’ve had a lot of conversations on this blog about charitable contributions. For instance: where people like to give, and why; how a young philanthropist should disburse $70 million; whether to give to a street beggar, a hot dog vendor, or neither.
And from the Economics of Street Charity, I relate to this part:
Although I’m atheist, I defer to Jesus on beggar-related matters. He said, if a man asks for your coat, give him your cloak too. (Actually, he said if a man “sue thee at the law” for the coat, but most beggars skip the legal process.) Jesus did not say: First, administer a breathalyzer test to the supplicant, or, first, sit him down for a pep talk on “focus” and “goal-setting.” He said: Give him the damn coat.
What would you do, confronted by the hot dog vendor and the beggar situation? What would you do in the situation I just found myself in?
Continuing with the ethical theme of this post, here’s a cute video about doing the right thing. It’s a little long (10 minutes), but worth it.
Last night I ended up working til about 8 (a 12 hour day). I can’t complain too much because after all my job is easy and generally involves a lot of free time (read: internet surfing). In fact, I’m not really complaining at all.
Ordered some room service (burger, fries, cheesecake, iced tea!), and went to bed. Now it’s 7am and I should probably be heading back to the office here shortly.
I’m fairly excited about this, not because it is a masterpiece but because I was actually inspired to write something. It’s not the best thing ever… it’s got some issues, but it’s a first draft with no editing.
John Scalzi, author of Old Man’s War, among others, has a contest on his blog, in which he challenges his readers to :
Explain the events of the night of August 19, 1994.
Huh? You say. What did happen on the night of August 19, 1994? Well, that’s my point: There’s a lot of confusion on what really happened. That’s why we need you to explain it. Perhaps you were there. Perhaps you know someone who was there. Perhaps you heard something about that evening on the Internet or other source. However you know the details, share them with us. Aside from reporting the “facts,” do not be afraid to insert your own speculation or commentary concerning the events: your personal interpretation is valuable — nay, necessary.
Do not be deterred by others who may offer up entirely different facts, speculation or commentary. As I said, there’s a lot of confusion about what really happened. Just give it your best shot, and post your explanation/speculation in the comment thread here. Heck, you can even post more than one explanation — even if that second explanation completely contradicts your other explanation. Just get your posting in before 11:59:59 pm on Thursday, May 15 (Eastern Time). On Friday, May 16, I’ll announce the winner. And then we’ll all know what truly happened on that fateful night.
So: The evening of August 19, 1994. What can you tell me about it?
Here’s what I submitted:
This document was obtained on August 19th, 2008, as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request on documents regarding the “Pandora Project.” Jay Tulley committed suicide on August 19th, 2008.
Inevitably, there was a cover-up. The government infused the media with enough tall tales to confuse the events of August 19th for generations. Some implicated extraterrestrials; others blame terrorists. A lonely, ridiculed few suggested that the Argonne research involved time travel, but they were only partly right. No one else survived who knows the truth – only me.
The power grid had failed at 8:00 pm sharp – everybody knows that. What they don’t know is that is was part of an elaborate attempt to sabotage the experiments, rather than a result of them. Certain right-wing organizations had learned of the event, decided it was an act against God, and vowed to stop it.
I’m no physicist. I’m just the guy that cleans up. I can’t tell you exactly what Dr. Bailey was working on, but it had something to do with chaos and quantum… Damn it! I can’t remember the specifics. What I do know is that while you, and everyone else in the world, experienced the time loop for a day, those of us who were closer to ground zero were doomed to a worse fate.
The world was shocked after having woken up on what they thought was the 20th, only to find that it was still the 19th, and nothing they had done the first time around had happened. They were even more shocked that it had happened to everyone they knew – which meant no one could really change anything because everyone knew each other’s motives, and besides, they only had the one day. Some didn’t know they only had the one day, and they spent it recklessly as if they were Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
Dr. Lucas Bailey, Dr. Jamie Litsa, John Koht, Anna (beautiful Anna whose name I never learned), and I were directly within the blast zone, along with two of the assholes who shut down the power grid, causing the problem in the first place. Everyday, every August 19th, we fought against them to keep them from shutting down the grid, and every day they fought back just as hard, maybe harder, zealously with God on their side. Everyday we searched for more clues on discover exactly how they shut down the grid (there’s not a master switch somewhere or anything like that). Everyday we forgot most of what we learned the day before.
In the end, the PhD’s had gone crazy – everyone had gone crazy but the doctors especially – and killed themselves. Dr. Bailey went the old-fashioned way but he couldn’t find a rope so he hung himself with a fifty-foot Ethernet cable. Dr. Litsa stabbed himself in the throat and bled to death, but not before slicing John’s throat.
Anna, sweet Anna, would have lived if she’d only gone along with my plan.
I lost count of how many days had looped. In the end, victory was in the hands of the lowly janitor, Jay Tulley, who might not know a thing about physics but knows how to put the pieces together. The doctors had taken care of most of the power grid problems, so after I took out those traitor right-wing bastards, the time loop stopped. Today, the time loop stopped, with everyone dead and Anna’s blood on my hands. No more days, no more chances to fix everything. The guilt is real now, and there’s only one way to stop it.
Any comments?
Here’s an interesting statue I ran across on my walk to work today:
I’m pretty sure it is of extraterrestrial origin.
Other things I’ve run across while working really really hard today:
Having lunch now from a place called Jugo Juice. I got a “Banana Buzz” smoothie (iced coffee + bananas + yogurt) and a Mediterranean veggie wrap. Yum! Probably back to the hotel shortly.
Some links of interest…
A quote from Nietzche:
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
Last night I had dinner in the hotel’s restaurant…
The Keg Steakhouse & Bar
Great Keg steaks, a casual atmosphere, and friendly, knowledgeable service are the proud trademarks of The Keg Steakhouse & Bar. Our location offers a truly comfortable and satisfying dining atmosphere accompanied by a fun and casual bar setting.
I was feeling like healthy fare, so I just had a spinach salad with pecans, cranberries, goat cheese, mandarin oranges and a vinaigrette dressing. A little too citrus-y for my tastes, though. I also had half a glass of red wine, since that’s good for you. Afterwards, settled back into the hotel room and went to bed.
This morning, no rush to get to the office… took a leisurely shower and got dressed, headed out for breakfast. Nothing grabbed me along the way, but right near the office is a Tim Horton’s (Canadian version of Starbucks) where I got an iced coffee, a breakfast sandwich, and two dozen donuts for my Canadian friends.
Right now I am just chilling out here in the office with not a whole lot to do. Figuring out what to do for lunch.
Here it is Saturday afternoon and I am on a United Airlines plane bound for Calgary, Alberta. I lucked out and got an empty seat next to me, so I can stretch out and have a wee bit of privacy.
The weekend was spent packing mostly, or involved with otherwise mundane activities, but on Saturday my brother came out for our informal movie night, and we watched the latest Alien vs. Predator (not bad for its genre) and one called He Was A Quiet Man with Christian Slater, which was surprisingly good. The main character reminded me of the guy from Office Space whose desk was constantly moved, eventually down to the basement, and who had his red Swingline stapler stolen. Only instead of burning the office building down, he brought a gun with him everyday to work and imagined blowing the building up. Anyway, it was an interesting exploration into the ability of people to change and I would recommend it. Also, the special features include alternate endings!
And now here I am, with two hours to go on this flight, a charge of 66% on the laptop, a Layers magazine, two sci-fi books, and some ice water.
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Wrote that first bit on the plane. Now I’m tucked into the hotel, and deciding what to do with the rest of the night. I took a few pictures with my berry, which have been posted over at Flickr. Here’s a few highlights…
The smoking ban in Calgary is apparently more stringent than Chicago’s. One of the few smoking areas outside the airport was covered with signs, and accompanying “graffiti”, like this one:
Interesting, since I work for said industry. There are a bunch more in the Flickr set.
Also, here’s my room at the Westin:
Again, more pics in the Flickr set.
Alrighty, now I am off to figure out what to do with my free evening. Love to all.
P.S. Radiantreader - got your message, meant to call back, got busy, etc. Let’s hang out when I get back ok?
I’m considering this type of thing for the wedding ceremony:
Simple, but elegant.
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