RobZerrvations
Musings from a Meandering, Mischievous Mind
Make It Happen, Cap’n.
We are all so blessed to be alive. If you don't believe me, consider the alternative. As I grow older, more and more people I know are passing on to their next journey. Some are older than I, which softens the blow, while others are younger, hitting home the message that you better enjoy every stinking moment you have here because your moments are finite. I admit that I had slipped into something of a malaise about life in the past year. I started to become a spectator in some areas of life...
Oh Tommy, Where Art Thou?
Once again we're back at each other's throats about gun control. If you think this is an anti-gun or pro-gun RobZerrvation, think again. Blissfully in the middle of the political spectrum, I see all sides of the argument but adhere to none singularly. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a gun owner. I own the gun they were actually referencing in the Constitution. Yes, a good ol' flintlock. I guess you could say that I am a strict Constitutionalist when it comes to gun ownership. Give me...
A Leap Of Faith.
It's a brave person who steps off into the unknown, knowing that there's no going back and no safety net to catch you if you fall. Such was the case with astronaut Ed White. He was the first American to step out of a spacecraft and go for a walk in the vast emptiness of space. It almost killed him, largely because no one knew what it would be like, so there was no way to train for the mission itself, except to make a lot of best guesses. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, as they say....
I Just Don’t Believe It.
There seems to be a lot of deniers out there these days. They seem to deny everything too, from the earth being round and man landing on the moon to the Holocaust. Most recently, I came upon some denier threads that maintained that the launch of Elon Musk's Tesla into orbit was faked. "It was a nice CGI job," one wag said, "but they forgot to add the stars." Well, let's start with the basics. Once outside of earth's atmosphere, the light from the sun near earth is extremely bright, far...
Well, Son Of A Gun.
Another week, another senseless mass shooting followed by the usual call on one side for thoughts and prayers and on the other, gun control. In this case, a school was shot up by a kook and there are additional calls for arming teachers. Next week it could at a mall, movie theater or city park, so just who do we arm then? The usher? The Penney's clerk? The professional dogwalker? I get that we are all outraged by the seemingly nonstop senseless murdering going on. I think we all agree that no...
Idiot Lights For Everyone!
My car went on the blink last week. Literally. As you may recall, my Saturn VUE was a parting gift from my relationship in Florida. It has since been pressed into relatively light duty, driving about two miles to the transit center each day. It is a 2004, but still has only 108,000 miles on it. On Sunday, I took it on a long road trip, if you can call driving to Ballard a road trip. Somewhere along the way, a light came on just above the gas gauge. It was an idiot light telling me to do...
Worrywart.
I've worried about stuff my whole life. Oh sure, you say, everyone worries. It's just part of life. But me, I am an Olympic-level worrier, one who can conjure up the worst possible outcomes and then fester about them for days, weeks, months, even years on end. I even talked to my doctor about it once. I told him that my family had the Worry Gene and that I had been infected with it. For some reason, he didn't pull out a single medical book on the subject, only saying that we are not...
A Really Bitchin’ Kitchen.
I was trying to help my son with life this past week. Over the years, I've learned a lot of stuff, so I thought I would give him some pearls of wisdom to help him take a few shortcuts. This never works out, of course. I had mentioned that he had better bone up on the company he was interviewing for as they will ask him "What do you know about our company?" But he poo-pooed it, saying he's never been asked that in all three interviews he's had. With some satisfaction, I received a text from him...
Rats In The Belfry.
The noises are still going on in my house, but I have given up the idea that Willard 2 is being filmed secretly in my walls. It all started when winter set upon us. I had read somewhere that almost a third of all American homes experience a rodent problem at some point. Given that my house is bordered by a creek, I knew that it had had a history of river rats. I even think I might have seen one outside once, sitting in a tree. Kat told me that it was just a rare hairless squirrel. Though I had...
Feeling A Bit Disconnected.
I was watching The Circle a couple of nights ago. If you haven't seen this movie, you should. Even though it is clearly fiction - a movie about data mining companies becoming Big Brother, all seeing, all knowing - it has many grains of truth. I should know. I have been online for the last 25 years. My days go back to a 1200 baud modem and a dial-up account with AOL. I can still hear the modem chirping, squealing and shrilling as it negotiated a connection between my house and AOL's...
Christinsanity.
I grew up Catholic. I was never a very good soldier of Christ. Most kids brought up in a religious family aren't. We are born sinners, prone to going so far as to lie to our priest as we search in vain for a sin significant enough to warrant a Hail Mary or Our Father. As I grew older, I started to figure out that the whole Catholic thing really didn't work for me. It started when I got divorced. The only way I could stay a Catholic was to get an annulment, which would have made my daughter...
Those Pigs.
You can't open up a newspaper or watch the 6 o'clock news these days without some guy being outed as a lech, pervert, scumbag or abuser. From politicians to the Hollywood elite, everyone seems to have used and sadly, abused women. Even sadder, we have this strange sliding scale about when it comes to this piggish behavior. While we're hanging Harvey Weinstein out to dry in Hollywood, we're pretending the guy in the White House never said all those heinous things about women in a tape...