Bits And Pieces - 6-27-2022

Bits and Pieces - 6-27-2022

The last time the Avs hoisted the cup, my wife and I had to call a friend in California to keep up with the game for us, as Tropical Storm Allison had turned our little piece of the world into a bit of a mess. We were desparate for Ray Bourque to lift that thing, and our little cell phones, and a friend on the other end of the line who'd never seen a hockey game in her life, made a very long weekend into something a little more of a good time. Go Avs!

Roe V. Wade. Oy. They've been gunning for it for a long time, and here we are. This will always be a bootleggers and baptists issue: the mouthy ones will always be able to get their daughters and granddaughters abortions when they get pregnant from "the wrong guy". They will always use the threat of enforcement as a means of showing power in small communities. When the pregnancy mortality rate creeps up, they'll turn deaf and mute. And when 3 of the sitting justices are already poised to begin rolling back the other issues the Straight White Life brigade have been sitting on for 50 years, which is where we were in the 90's with abortion, the voices who say "of course we'd never go after those decisions" will sound ever more ridiculous and defensive as they find their reasons to shrug and then support (but only after it's a fait accompli, of course) the next attack.

Our daughter has tested Covid positive, and is miserable. Fortunately, hanging tight here at the house for a couple weeks is doable, which hasn't been the case for a while in terms of schedules. The rest of the house is good so far, but historically it's usually been the case that either her mother or I get whatever bug she does. It's just about 50/50 which of our immune systems turn out to be a better match, so we're both having a graveyard laugh at the moment to see which of us gets it. Everyone's vaccinated, so we've hope at least that it'll be miserable but otherwise just the usual hassle of being sick.

And yes, I'm well aware of the irony that I had to travel for the day gig for the last couple of years, but it's the kid going to college that brings it home. Oy. Such is life sometimes.

As part of the day gig stuff, I've been keeping a gimlet eye on renewable power options. I continue to be cautiously optimistic about the path we're all on, and especially that receptiveness is starting to creep out into the broader mindset. Being someone who's had a secondary (and, to my joy and surprise, now something close to a primary) interest in broader power gen methods for something like fourty years, I've learned to let folks laugh. And now I get to just smile and nod as they slowly start to realize what's coming. It's kind of nice.

Part of my quiet these past few months is that I've had to learn to look at folks like Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch and other working artists, grin and admire and cheer for what they've been able to accomplish over the past few years, even with the struggle, and then turn to myself and say "Not yet, not my current path". Partially for my own mental health reasons, mostly just because I had to take a good hard look at where I am and what I need at the moment.

Speaking of which: now I have to re-think the Quiet mechanism in the original Mage RPG. At the time, I slotted that into one-character games, for the most part, simply because the idea, good as it was, didn't fit automatically into a multi-character party. I'd still call it that; keep an alt ready to go and we'll get back to it. But at the same time, I have to think that, for the sweep of the story that that game wanted to tell, they'd have been at a real loss without it being there.

I still giggle whenever I peruse those areas of physics where Einstein stepped into it. The EPR paradox is the most famous, but there are others like the details and extensions of Brownian motion. What seems to be common for these little comments and episodes is that they're areas where Einstein made a true contribution, but it was a step along the way, not a definitive, comprehensive theory. So, when subsequent developments showed this, Einstein became defensive. Which is both natural and almost cliche; all of us have that tendency, I think, in greater or lesser degree.

But it is quite funny when it's "the genius of our time" who's caught out publically being a bit frustrated that their idea wasn't the be all and end all. And a reminder to try and be a bit more gracious when it happens to me. In fact, one of the hidden benefits of the day gig is that there are more than enough technical areas involved to keep me on my toes and daily reminded of the limits.