(Warning: Although I normally restrict my swearing to the Poor Driving series so that it's easy to avoid, this post will also contain swearing. But then again, it's at least in part about poor driving, so it seems thematically appropriate.)
So I normally have my next few blog posts planned out. I've actually got a couple planned posts in this series that I haven't gotten around to doing yet. This wasn't one of them. But I read this one to my son at bedtime the other day because he asked for it, and it's been a while, and we needed a short book to finish up storytime.
And then I recalled why I hate this book, and this new post was born.
I've actually hated this book since shortly after the first time I read it. I have nothing against Blue personally; I enjoy Little Blue Truck quite a bit. How can you not? It's about the Golden Rule and the power of friendship, with a little bit of schadenfreude and karma thrown in. And if there are other Little Blue Truck books, I haven't read them, which means I don't hate them either.
But this book, man. This fuckin' book.
I complained to my wife about this book back when it was a near-daily staple in the storytime routine. I may have slipped an editorial or two into storytime. It's possible that I was told to knock it off and just read the damn book already. (It's also possible I'm grossly paraphrasing here...) And reading this book again brought back all of those feelings of rage as if they'd never left.
So you know what? I've got my own blog, where I can write about whatever the hell I want, and no one can stop me! So I'm going to write about this damn book.
For those of you not familiar, the Little Blue Truck is a simple country pickup who is friend to animals and rude bulldozers alike. This particular story sees Blue on an adventure to the big city.
As you can imagine, simple country pickups and the big city don't mix very well.
After a brief time enjoying the sights of the city, Blue is overwhelmed by rude vehicles demanding that he get his ass in gear and stop blocking the damn road because they've got places they need to be and can't wait all day for a motherfucking n00b to finish gawking and get the hell out of the way.
Now, could these vehicles (including a tour bus, grocery truck, a police car (seriously, Blue is impeding a police car WITH ITS LIGHTS FLASHING. Do they not have these out in the country? Like, at all? Are flashing lights that hard to understand?), a street sweeper, the fucking Mayor's limo, and the last straw, a taxi, behaving as obnoxiously as taxis usually do) be more polite in expressing their frustration with Blue's leisurely pace and their desire to be about their business? Of course they could. Do they still have a valid point? Abso-fucking-lutely, and as you can probably guess from my Poor Driving posts, I'm way more sympathetic to them than I'm probably supposed to be.
So Blue winds up creating gridlock throughout the entire city core, and is trapped in the middle of an intersection, surrounded by hostile cars fed up with his fucking dipshit balderdashery, when he finally snaps (genteely, of course), and offers possibly THE WORST ADVICE IN THE HISTORY OF CITY TRANSPORTATION:
"You might be fast, and I might be slow, but one at a time is the way to go!"
Oooooooo-kay then.
Of course, then the Mayor's limo dies, and Blue offers him a ride, whereupon the Mayor seizes his chance to bloviate and pander ("the way mayors do"), and doubles down on Blue's folksy bullshit. "How lucky we are to have this little blue truck here to educate us on the error of our ways," he says. "Let's absolutely take advice from the truck that's NEVER BEEN IN THE CITY BEFORE AND CAUSED THE GODDAMN TRAFFIC JAM TO BEGIN WITH."
(I may be paraphrasing again.)
So, of course, all the good collectivist vehicles follow their glorious leader's instructions and fall into a single file line behind Blue, having seen the light and mended their asshole-y ways. And "it all went fine", we're told.
OH, FUCK NO.
What would actually happen, of course, is a clusterfuck of epic proportions that would shut down the city core for hours. How do I know? Just look at what happens around here when one lane gets shut down on any given street. It's like goddamn Kralizec, and you need a fucking Guild Navigator to get anywhere.
Fittingly, a marching band joins the line of cars, because what's going on now isn't any semblance of reasonable traffic flow, but a full-blown, honest to God parade. And do parades enhance traffic flow and allow the smooth and rapid transport of goods and people? Of course they fucking well don't; they're a fucking disaster. And of course people spontaneously line the parade route and cheer Blue all the way out of town, rather than running him out chased by threats of physical bodily harm. Seriously, it's like this book takes place in North Korea or Crimea.
Anyways, it's probably clear that, despite the anti-peripatetic fuckmuppetry going on here, that's not the only thing bothering me about this book. Most people don't get this worked up over a children's book, I'm told. (Of course, I'm told this by someone who was read Beowulf for storytime when she was 5, so I've got a boulder of salt here with me...) No, there's something much more insidious going on here.
Let's go take another look at the key passage in the story here:
"You might be fast, and I might be slow, but one at a time is the way to go!"
What's Blue really saying here? Basically, he's saying, "I know you guys are all smart and fancy, and I'm just a simple country pickup truck here for the first time, but my simple folksy wisdom will obviously recognize and easily solve problems in a way your ivory tower methods can't."
It's the exact same anti-elite, anti-intellectual, "small towns are the pinnacle of American culture" truthiness bullshit that's infecting America today.
Look, as I've mentioned before, I grew up in Eastern Washington. I've got nothing against small towns. I like small towns just as much as I like big cities. They've each got their own problems and charms; there's a lot they can learn from each other; and sometimes what works for one just won't work for the other, and both sides need to do a better job of recognizing that. I'm not taking sides here, just arguing against the promotion of one over the other.
Seeing crap like this in a kid's book just pisses me off.
Did the authors do this deliberately? Honestly, I doubt it. This isn't Melanie's Marvelous Measles. But if anything, that just makes it worse. A deliberate bias like that is easy to explain away, brush off for what it is. I think the authors simply took a character they established in a perfectly nice first book (except for that bulldozer which is probably off to demolish precious wilderness to build some soulless McMansion suburban sprawl), and put him in a new situation.
But a book that simply assumes that naturally Blue's way is best, despite being completely out of his element and his solution being a terrible one, is far more treacherous. It starts planting that seed that them there city folks are not just rude, but they don't even have the common sense to figure out how to drive down a road! It's a good thing we have these plain-spoken, clear-thinking country folks to show people how things should really be done. And it's all so natural that it's hard to argue against or even recognize that it's happening.
And no, I would equally not want to see a book where a city car goes out to Blue's farmland and starts giving advice, either. Just so we're clear.
For what it's worth, my characterization two paragraphs above is not necessarily how I think of non-city dwellers, but it is, in my experience (in person, online, and with more public figures in the media), how many of them seem to think of themselves. For a particularly egregious example, consider Sarah Palin.
So yeah, I know. It's just a kids' book. It seems a little silly to get so worked up about it. But dammit, this is an attitude that is seriously fucking up America right now, and it pisses me off that it's in a goddamn kids' book, of all things. He's got his whole life to deal with this; why start now? Why start instilling that sort of attitude before he's even old enough to understand it?
Fuck that shit. And fuck Blue's craniorectal advice, too. "One at a time" is the motherfucking Blue Screen of Death of traffic management. Here's a better idea: Go with the goddamn traffic flow and stop getting in everyone's way, please and thank you.
Fin.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Poor Driving: 4-Way Stops Edition
Alright, Seattle drivers, it's time for another installment of the series wherein I make fun of your goddamn miserable driving and do my best to teach you how to not be lameass shitheels who fuck things up for everyone who does know how to drive.
Given that, on my commutes this past week, I have literally experienced drivers doing EVERY SINGLE MOTHERFUCKING THING I've bitched about in the last two installments (plus an addendum!), I don't know why I bother. It's like talking to a fucking wall. Well, yelling, really. But given how you're apparently scared shitless of walls (seriously, learn to drive through a fucking tunnel, PLEASE), I'm probably just frightening you even more. Poor babies.
Anyways, our topic of violent frustration and hopeful fucking enlightenment today is 4-way stops. These are a fundamental element of driving, and everyone should have encountered these literally hundreds of times by now, so there's no fucking excuse for not having a goddamn clue what the hell you're doing when you get to one. Seriously, it's not that fucking hard. Here's what you do:
(Just so we're crystal fucking clear, these instructions dispense with the part where you're waiting in line to get up to the stop sign. If you can't handle that part without instructions, you need to abandon your fucking car on the fucking side of the road and never ever drive again. And yes, I have seen asshats that this actually applies to. Anyways.)
1) Pull up to the stop line and STOP.
Pretty self-explanatory, right? Yeah, not so much apparently. See that big white strip across your lane even with the stop sign? Well, maybe you don't, given how SDOT keeps up with maintenance... or doesn't. Anyways, STOP THERE. A complete stop! Do not keep rolling. Yes, you may observe others continuing to roll under certain circumstances. If you need these instructions, you have not earned the right to do this. You've earned the goddamn right to do what I fucking tell you to do, which is to stop your motherfucking car.
2) Check for traffic in the other directions.
Are there cars waiting at the other stop signs? Did they stop before you? Then they get to go first! A stop sign isn't just a fucking speed bump; you don't just stop and then go again. It's a traffic control device, which means it's designed to control how traffic goes through the intersection. Isn't it clever how the name sort of describes what it does?
3) Actually navigate the intersection.
This is so fucking simple, I'm not even sure I can describe it adequately, but let's try:
- Cars across from each other go at the SAME FUCKING TIME. Do not fucking wait to go until the car across from you has cleared the intersection. When they pull out, YOU PULL OUT, TOO. Don't be the fucking teenager who doesn't have a condom and no self-control. In both situations, you're going to seriously fuck things up and ruin lots of people's days.
- If you're turning left, turn BEHIND the car going straight. It's a simple enough idea. If you turn in front of someone going straight, they have to wait for you to clear the intersection before they can go, and you're forcing them to either violate the bullet above, or wait for their next turn. Either way, people are going to be fucking pissed at your failure as a human being.
- Once this is done in one direction, the cars in the other direction go. Wait your fucking turn.
Seriously, it's that fucking easy. Three goddamn steps. This could be a motherfucking PowerPoint; it's not like I'm writing a huge-ass manual here.
Keeping all of this in mind, here are some things to not do:
- DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE CAR ACROSS FROM YOU CLEARS THE FUCKING INTERSECTION. Yes, I said that already. It's that important, and you miserable motherfuckers manage to screw this up ALL THE FUCKING TIME. You do this, and you should count yourself lucky if someone doesn't slash your tires as you drive past, dipshit.
- DO NOT TURN LEFT IN FRONT OF A CAR GOING STRAIGHT. Yes, I said that already, too. Still important, and still screwed up ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. You do this, and you've essentially added another cycle to every other car waiting at the stop sign. This sort of shit will earn you "to the seventh generation"-type curses. You don't do it at a fucking stoplight, because you'd get your stupid ass T-boned, so why would you do it here?
- Stop being so fucking timid! Know when it's your turn, and then go! If you're not sure, then promptly gesture for the other person to go, so that the lines keep moving. Do NOT do the fucking thing where you both inch forward at the same time, see the other dipshit doing the same thing, and stop, only to repeat the same thing 10 seconds later. This isn't a fucking middle school dance.
- If the car in front of you has just gone, DO NOT GO! You are the most selfish excuse for a human being in the history of the world if you try to sneak through the intersection as a second car in a cycle. You're worse than a Fortune 500 CEO, the guy who takes half the cookies in the break room and the guy who takes candy from babies all rolled up into one. It is not your fucking turn.
(Exception: if it's two lanes going through the stop sign, you damn well better go when the car next to you does.)
The biggest indictment of Seattle drivers' fuckmuppetry, though, is that you actually handle non-standard stops better than you do 4-way stops. 5-way or 7-way stops? Actually flow pretty well, all things considered, because you presumably take a minute to think about how to handle it. Even the utterly bizarre intersection by the Starbucks at Green lake (which is actually only a 4-way stop, although it feels like about a 10-way), flows fairly smoothly when the pedestrians don't get in the way.
So get your shit together, Seattle drivers. Grow the fuck up, and learn to navigate a goddamn staple of American driving.
Bonus: This guy stole my schtick, but it's still darn good advice about another thing Seattle drivers suck at: driving in snow. The awesome thing is, this actually works for driving in rain, too, but you don't have to be so conservative!
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Mental Cartography
When I first moved to Seattle to start attending UW (14+
years ago, which is ridiculous, because I only lived in Eastern Washington for
12 years, and there’s simply no way I’ve lived here longer than I lived over
there), I had only the most rudimentary understanding of the layout of the
Puget Sound metro area, which was pretty much based around the I-90
corridor. Okay, rudimentary is probably
an understatement. Tenuous? Basic?
None of those really convey the sense of “really have no idea what is
where” that I’m striving for here, but my vocabulary is failing me.
Anyways, I think it’s understandable, since I grew up in
Eastern Washington, and really only came over here for Christmas, Mariners
games and the occasional band trip.
Plus, I was never driving myself, and while I don’t have a problem
learning how to get places from riding (although I understand this is a thing,
poor unfortunate souls), this was infrequent enough that it never really sank
in. Plus, those were pretty short and
focused trips, without a lot of exploring.
Makes it hard to learn an area, y’know?
I knew where the Kingdome (and later Safeco) was (because
it’s right off the end of I-90), and that Snohomish and Arlington were north of
Seattle (family), and I knew a few spot locations in Seattle (again, family), but
not really how to get there, and that was really about it. As I said, I’m lacking in words for just how
pathetically sketchy my knowledge was.
Note that UW is not near any of these places.
Obviously, it started getting better once I moved here,
although it took a while. Driving up to
85th seemed like going to a different town, let along going all the
way across to Ballard. In fairness,
about the only time you get on the freeway in the Tri-Cities is when you
actually ARE going to a different town.
Pasco’s the only one where you can really get to significantly different
portions of town on a freeway with any sort of efficiency. And I didn’t really spend much time in Pasco.
Northgate was even farther (especially when you make the
mistake of taking the 75 instead of
something like the 66
or 67…). Since I didn’t have a car,
I mostly learned bus routes, and a whole bunch of spot locations from band
parties and the like, but I didn’t really have a sense of how they all fit
together (and not because of any imbibing at the parties, I promise, Mom and
Dad). I’d have experiences where I’d
take a new bus route that happened to go by several places that I knew, right
in a row, and I’d had no idea that they were all so close together.
Even today, though, and despite my good sense of direction,
I still have some gaping holes in my mental cartography of the Seattle metro
area. Actually, that’s not entirely the
right way to put it. Really, it’s that I
have some severe misconceptions in my mental structure of the area, which remain
despite multiple refutations. This area
is very different in my head than it is in the real world.
For example, in my head, Seattle ends at I-90 and the
stadiums. Sodo? Columbia City? Rainier Valley? Heck, even West Seattle? Not actually part of Seattle in my head. What do they belong to? Not really sure, but it’s not Seattle, I’m
sure about that. I just never (or
really, really rarely) go down there (except on the freeway!), so in my head,
they don’t count.
That’s not always true, though. Capitol Hill and Magnolia, say, are both
definitely part of Seattle to me, and I’ve rarely been to either of them,
either. What’s the difference? Arbitrary geographic locations,
apparently. I’m not even sure where the
southern line of Seattle is.
Somewhere around Boeing Field?
I’ve got most of North Seattle down, except that everything
east of 35th NE still confuses the heck out of me, because a lot of
the street grid structure breaks down. I
will go miles out of my way all the way out to near Magnuson Park just to avoid
the streets in the interior of that area.
I’m pretty sure cardinal directions break down in there. Daedalus would have nightmares about it. (My hobby: using more obscure portions of
famous mythological stories.) Maybe
there’s a minotaur?
In my head, Bellevue is basically an area bounded by 4th,
8th, I-405, and Bellevue Way (plus the stuff on the west side of
Bellevue Way, because Bell Square is definitely part of Bellevue). Outside of that, Eastgate counts mostly
because it’s on that I-90 corridor I mentioned earlier (although everything
south of I-90, like Factoria, isn’t included).
Once you get off of Eastgate, though, or outside of that downtown core,
it’s not Bellevue, it’s just, I don’t know, unincorporated forestland? Oh, and exiting onto Bellevue Way from I-90
and 520 immediately takes you to the downtown core (which is therefore apparently
simultaneously both four blocks and five miles wide). (Sorry for butchering your town, friends from
Bellevue.)
This is a perfect example of how these misconceptions
persist despite the fact that I objectively know much, much better. I’ve been to Bellevue High several
times. Taking my vanpool in for
maintenance goes through Factoria. I’ve
run several errands up to the Crossroads area. Every day, I leave work, drive down
Eastgate, and then cut off on other roads through to SE 8th. I know that these places are all part
of Bellevue, but I still don’t actually believe it.
It’s not just the Seattle area, though. No matter how many times I look at a map, I
remain unconvinced that Seattle and Spokane are at basically the
same latitude, and that Wenatchee is south of them both. That’s just not possible. And Spokane really just consists of about a
mile along the river from the dam to Gonzaga, right?
Even where I grew up, I still have trouble with certain
geographic relationships. I always know,
intellectually, that my high school, Southridge, is further west than I always
think it is. There’s just a big hill
between it and most of the rest of town that keeps you from being able to
visually place it. But I didn’t realize
until just now, looking at a map, that
it’s actually further west than Kamiakin!
(Not by a lot, but it’s true!) That
just cannot possibly be. It’s just not
physically possible.
I’m sure by now you’re expecting me to pivot to something
meaningful about how facts can have a hard time overcoming preconceptions, but
I’m going to mix things up and just leave this here on a light note.
And a question: What funny mental geography quirks do you
have?
Monday, January 12, 2015
Why I'm Rooting for Oregon Tonight
1) It’s basically Pascal’s Wager for college
football. Yes, Pascal’s Wager requires
you to pick a side, which I’m not obligated to do here, but half the fun of
sports is rooting for teams in games you have no stake in, so… close enough.
2) Pac-12 pride: If Oregon loses, the Pac-12
reputation takes a hit. It’ll appear,
once again, as though the rest of the Pac-12 can’t beat a team that can’t hang
with the best. Less of a risk with the
demolition of the BCS, granted, since Oregon has already won a playoff game, and
certainly less than the (ever-so-well-deserved) SEC reputation hit this year,
but still something. After all of the
mockery of the Increasingly-Inaccurately-Named-Conference over the last few
years for being a fairly weak conference, losing to them now wouldn’t look
good.
3) Impeccable politeness: Imagine, as a Husky fan,
being confronted with a stereotypical Duck fan (should be easy enough) upon
their victory this evening. This Duck
fan would of course be boisterously, even obnoxiously effusive in his glee
(albeit deservedly), and would likely attempt to rub in your face their
national championship (no matter how polite I’m being here, I refuse to use
their appalling abbreviation for this title).
How might this Duck fan react to a polite and positive response
congratulating them on their achievement?
a.
They realize that it’s difficult (both
tactically and morally) to mock someone who refuses to become upset at the
mocking, but instead agrees with them as to the substance of their statements,
and they thereby tone down their own behavior.
As a Husky fan, you can feel a certain pride at helping Oregon fans
become better people, one fan at a time.
You can also enjoy your moral superiority for graciously taking the high
road.
b.
They continue the behavior that has earned them
nigh-universal recognition as gauche. As
a Husky fan, you can not only take even more enjoyment in your moral
superiority as described above, but also delight in this confirmation of the
true nature of (most) Oregon fans.
Now, granted, you could do this even while
rooting for tOSU, but I think it would probably be easier if you rooted for
Oregon to begin with.
4)
Friends:
The few Oregon fans I’m friends with (left over from high school) are
actually very decent people (and reasonable fans), and I feel somewhat bad
rooting against them when I have no other reason to root for tOSU.
In other words, my reasons are pretty much all cynical and
self-serving, except for the last one.
But how else would I manage to root for Oregon?
I recognize that this may not work for everyone, and I don’t blame them
for that whatsoever. These are not the best of reasons; they are not the worst of reasons. There’s a lot of
bad blood (and flung dog feces) out there to overcome. I don’t claim that this will be easy for me,
and Pascal didn’t even expect his infinitely larger stakes to convince everyone
(of course, he was also as Calvinist as a Catholic can be, apparently, so there
are some free will issues there. Similes
only go so far). I just thought I should
explain before I started getting incredulous hate mail from my fellow Huskies.
#GoDu… okay, I can’t go THAT far.
Friday, January 2, 2015
Scathing Critiques of Beloved Children's Books: The Railway Series
Most of you are probably more familiar with the name of the associated TV series, Thomas the Tank Engine (or Thomas and Friends, or whatever. I haven't seen it, but I gather they've changed the name several times). However, that show was originally based on The Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry.
The series itself is about a bunch of trains on the fictional island of Sodor, which is wedged in between England and the Isle of Man. The trains run about carrying passengers, goods, etc. Given that they're trains, and doing real work, you'd think that this would be something good for kids to read.
You'd think.
The vast majority of the trains, Thomas included, are actually kind of jerks. They constantly call each other names, make fun of each other (and are sometimes downright cruel), disobey instructions, whine about doing their assigned work, and then do it poorly, get inflated opinions of themselves, don't think through their actions beforehand, and get into (generally self-inflicted) trouble. In other words, they're all basically small children, with the obnoxiousness of Harry Potter in Order of the Phoenix.
(I haven't watched any of the episodes of the TV series, but Emily has, and she tells me that they're even worse in the show, especially the newer episodes.)
While the coaches (passenger cars) are generally well-behaved unless mistreated, the trucks (boxcars, hopper cars, etc.) are constantly being deliberately difficult, playing tricks on the engines and actually trying to hurt them at times.
The passengers aren't any better: they're rude, entitled whingers who are constantly complaining to anyone who will listen the first time anything goes wrong that it's a Bad Railway. Even Kieran has felt the need to stick up for the Railway against the passengers on occasion while reading these books.
Thomas is one of the worst, which is unfortunate, given that he seems to be the most popular, and that he's the namesake of the series. He's smug, stuck-up, and self-important. He treats most of the other engines fairly poorly, and doesn't follow directions, including instructions not to go certain places. But in a move George Lucas surely would have been proud of, the publisher insisted that the series focus more on Thomas, despite that clearly not being the original intent (he's not even in the first book). Because he was small and cute, or something like that. As if that means anything.
You know who the series should be named after?
Edward.
Because Edward is a freaking saint.
Edward is well-behaved. He's unfailingly polite to all of the other engines and the passengers. He's always happy to do his assigned work to the best of his ability, and is willing to take on extra work if needed by the railway. He's not the biggest engine, which means he gets dismissed by many as not as useful, but he tries hard, doesn't complain, and in general is everything that we should want our kids to emulate.
And Edward is actually the main character of the first book, which tells me that until the publisher stepped in, he might very well have been the focus of the series. Instead, he gets sent off to some other station somewhere along the line, to be reduced mostly to cameos in other trains' stories (although he does eventually get a book to himself), while Thomas gets his very own branch line to run, and many other stories of his own.
True to the real world, I suppose, but not really the message I want my kids getting.
The other particularly good role model in these books, to me, is Sir Topham Hatt (the Fat Controller). This is a man who understands what it is to run a business well (which is also remarkably like being a parent at times, given how child-like the trains can be). He's strict with the trains, expects them to do their best, and will follow through on punishments if necessary, but he also has a sense of humor, and is willing to give second chances once he feels that lessons have been learned.
He's also willing to do what it takes to give his engines a chance to succeed, and isn't stingy about bringing in replacement engines if someone breaks down, so that the other engines aren't stuck trying to do their own work plus some, while not simply firing the engines while they're broken. And when the passengers complain, as they inevitably do, he pretty much ignores them because he knows that stuff happens sometimes, and that it wouldn't be productive to punish the engines just to mollify the passengers.
So there's that. And the books are quite entertaining, which does go a long ways. But seriously, sometimes you just want to reach into the book and Gibbs-smacking the trains until they start behaving.
The series itself is about a bunch of trains on the fictional island of Sodor, which is wedged in between England and the Isle of Man. The trains run about carrying passengers, goods, etc. Given that they're trains, and doing real work, you'd think that this would be something good for kids to read.
You'd think.
The vast majority of the trains, Thomas included, are actually kind of jerks. They constantly call each other names, make fun of each other (and are sometimes downright cruel), disobey instructions, whine about doing their assigned work, and then do it poorly, get inflated opinions of themselves, don't think through their actions beforehand, and get into (generally self-inflicted) trouble. In other words, they're all basically small children, with the obnoxiousness of Harry Potter in Order of the Phoenix.
(I haven't watched any of the episodes of the TV series, but Emily has, and she tells me that they're even worse in the show, especially the newer episodes.)
While the coaches (passenger cars) are generally well-behaved unless mistreated, the trucks (boxcars, hopper cars, etc.) are constantly being deliberately difficult, playing tricks on the engines and actually trying to hurt them at times.
The passengers aren't any better: they're rude, entitled whingers who are constantly complaining to anyone who will listen the first time anything goes wrong that it's a Bad Railway. Even Kieran has felt the need to stick up for the Railway against the passengers on occasion while reading these books.
Thomas is one of the worst, which is unfortunate, given that he seems to be the most popular, and that he's the namesake of the series. He's smug, stuck-up, and self-important. He treats most of the other engines fairly poorly, and doesn't follow directions, including instructions not to go certain places. But in a move George Lucas surely would have been proud of, the publisher insisted that the series focus more on Thomas, despite that clearly not being the original intent (he's not even in the first book). Because he was small and cute, or something like that. As if that means anything.
You know who the series should be named after?
Edward.
Because Edward is a freaking saint.
Edward is well-behaved. He's unfailingly polite to all of the other engines and the passengers. He's always happy to do his assigned work to the best of his ability, and is willing to take on extra work if needed by the railway. He's not the biggest engine, which means he gets dismissed by many as not as useful, but he tries hard, doesn't complain, and in general is everything that we should want our kids to emulate.
And Edward is actually the main character of the first book, which tells me that until the publisher stepped in, he might very well have been the focus of the series. Instead, he gets sent off to some other station somewhere along the line, to be reduced mostly to cameos in other trains' stories (although he does eventually get a book to himself), while Thomas gets his very own branch line to run, and many other stories of his own.
True to the real world, I suppose, but not really the message I want my kids getting.
The other particularly good role model in these books, to me, is Sir Topham Hatt (the Fat Controller). This is a man who understands what it is to run a business well (which is also remarkably like being a parent at times, given how child-like the trains can be). He's strict with the trains, expects them to do their best, and will follow through on punishments if necessary, but he also has a sense of humor, and is willing to give second chances once he feels that lessons have been learned.
He's also willing to do what it takes to give his engines a chance to succeed, and isn't stingy about bringing in replacement engines if someone breaks down, so that the other engines aren't stuck trying to do their own work plus some, while not simply firing the engines while they're broken. And when the passengers complain, as they inevitably do, he pretty much ignores them because he knows that stuff happens sometimes, and that it wouldn't be productive to punish the engines just to mollify the passengers.
So there's that. And the books are quite entertaining, which does go a long ways. But seriously, sometimes you just want to reach into the book and Gibbs-smacking the trains until they start behaving.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
The Sun Bowl Trip
I'm back.
In honor of this being New Year's Eve, and since I already posted the story of the Rose Bowl trip, I thought I'd now post the story of the worst bowl trip ever: the 2002 Sun Bowl. Enjoy, and happy New Year's!
(Note that I originally wrote this in 2006. I've done some slight editing (mostly for clarity for non-HMB people), but almost all of the content is the same. I thought the contrast to my current writing style might be interesting.)
-----------------------------
So, the infamous Sun Bowl Trip of 2002. This probably should have been a sign to us that it was going to be our last bowl trip for a while.
It all started with us having to get to Dawghouse (band HQ) bright and early to catch our plane down to El Paso, where we'd then go to our practice facility to get some, y'know, practicing in. So we're all standing around yawning, waiting to leave for Boeing Field, when word comes down that our flight is delayed until a little after noon. Now, this is a charter flight, and there are generally few good reasons for charter flights to be delayed. I never actually heard the official explanation, but the two main theories, as I recall, were that the pilot needed a mandatory rest period that kept us from leaving on time, and that the pilot needed a refresher course on the plane. While the first is probably more likely, the second definitely fits what happened later better. (Ed: Since writing this, I've also heard a third theory that the pilot was drunk. This also fits.)
I forget the exact order in which things happened next, but we a) got some free time to go get breakfast and stuff, and b) had the day's practice rescheduled to before the plane flight (I think the practice came first, since I seem to recall some bitching about practicing at 9 in the morning, but I could be mistaken there). In and of itself, that doesn't sound ALL that bad, but recall what we normally travel in. Yeah, so we practiced in the morning, before a plane flight, in official ToC (Ed: dress shoes, black slacks, and polyester purple polo). Wasn't that fun.
So the plane finally arrives, and we depart for Boeing Field. After unloading our bags and piling them at the bottom of the conveyor belt (yeah, no fancy people-to-deal-with-our-luggage for us... but at least we didn't have to actually put them in the plane ourselves), we get on the plane, and away we go. The flight down is a little bumpy, as I recall, but uneventful, for the most part. Until, that is, the landing.
During normal landings, the ideal angle between the wings and the ground is just about 0 degrees. In this landing, it felt like that angle was about 30 degrees. I'm sure it was less, but that's what it felt like. Now, you're probably thinking that it would be difficult to get more than one set of wheels down in an attitude like that, and you'd be right to think that. In fact, it's probably for the best, since a second set of wheels on the ground would almost certainly have to be the nose wheel, which would likely put the wingtip, the nose, or both, below ground level, which is not necessarily a tenable situation for a plane attempting to keep complete structural integrity. On the other hand, only one set of wheels on the ground isn't a particularly stable configuration, either. So here we are, careening down the runway on one wheel. And I use the verb "careen" advisedly, with consideration of the "weaving back and forth" part of the definition. So another way to rephrase the previous sentence would be to say, "So here we are, weaving back and forth down the runway on one wheel".
If that sounds a bit nerve-racking, it was.
But obviously we didn't die, so we got off the plane, all wheels safely on the ground and stopped, and headed into the terminal, where a mariachi band put on a bit of a concert and dance for us, which was one of the about three bright spots on the trip. After the band was finished, we headed out to the buses to go to dinner. Suddenly, copious amounts of thick white smoke started pouring out from under our bus (and here, by "our", I mean the clarinets and sousas, as I will also mean in the future). Naturally, the driver got off to assess this alarming situation, which necessitated opening the door, thereby letting some of the -very bad smelling, as it turned out- smoke onto the bus. Apparently, the problem wasn't major, since he got back on and the smoke stopped, but this was still not a particularly encouraging development. However, the bus made it just fine to our dinner location, which was an excellent steakhouse. This steakhouse was the second bright spot on the trip, since not only was the food delicious, but they had karaoke, and the senior staff did a rendition of "Mustang Sally", with Chris Chapman, one of our grad assistant directors, on kickass lead vocals, once again confirming that he's just about the coolest person ever. Plus, I understand there were buffalo wandering around.
After dinner, we were off to our hotel, which was the final bright point of the trip, because the rooms were pretty damn cool, too. They were more apartments than hotel rooms, with a living room with a hide-a-bed, a kitchen (with a dishwasher!), a bedroom and bathroom downstairs, and a bedroom and bathroom upstairs (yes, there was an upstairs). Our luggage and large instruments had been transported separately, so the lobby was entirely full of bags and cases. And by entirely, I mean stacked up, and barely leaving walkways to the front desk for us to get our room keys. It was quite amusing.
The next morning, we were off to our practice facility, which turned out to be a high school stadium with dead grass and barely-visible lines and hashes. If you're thinking that this doesn't sound conducive to a good practice, you'd be right once again. Plus, there was a freezing cold wind which cut right through bibs (Ed: bright yellow vests worn while marching to enhance the director's visibility of the formations, with a big pocket on the front for music and charts. They're so ugly that they're actually pretty awesome) and warm clothing, and it even started snowing. I don't care that is was late December, we were in TEXAS. It's not supposed to snow in TEXAS. Really, this whole trip just is more proof that Texas sucks.
Anyways, by the end of practice, it had warmed up to about 70 degrees and sunny, so that was nice, at least, and meant that we wouldn't be completely miserable at the Battle of the Bands, which is where we were off to next. Theoretically, at least. About halfway to the Battle, our bus comes to a VERY abrupt stop with a loud bang, having just rear-ended the car in front of us. And naturally, it can't exactly leave the scene of the accident, so we clarinets and sousas unload the entire bus and cram onto the two or three other buses that have stopped to wait for us. Of course, our buses are usually pretty full, so most of us are either sitting on laps, or in the aisle. It's terrific fun, really.
But we finally get to the Battle of the Bands. And when we do, we find the Purdue band waiting for us, along with... not the rest of OUR band. Which, given that they went speeding away after we had our little accident, is somewhat puzzling and just a bit concerning, since they should have arrived at the site well before us. But we gamely pile off the buses and dance to cadences when it's our turn to play, since while we do have the percussion section, most of the brass are missing, and as much as we woodwinds hate to admit it, they are kinda necessary. Fortunately, about halfway through our third cadence, the missing half of the band comes tearing out of the building we're performing next to, having run all the way from their buses parked on the far side through said building. Therefore, we can finally get on with demolishing Purdue's band once again, which admittedly had gotten a bit better since the Rose Bowl, but was still a bit stiff.
Afterwards, and after a few hours free time, we're off to dinner at some Mexican place with the Purdue band, where the food is crappy and definitely NOT all-you-can-eat, as promised. In general, the whole thing pretty much sucks. But then, that is essentially in line with the whole trip...
Finally, it's Game Day. We lose, which bites. At least I don't have to want to murder Cody Pickett for being a coward this time. (Ed: At the Holiday Bowl, Cody Pickett, our QB, ran out of bounds on fourth down a yard from the first down marker to end our attempt at a comeback. One yard. Fourth down. No, I'm not still bitter, why do you ask?) We head back out to the buses for dinner, and while everyone ELSE can get in and change and eat, the clarinet/sousa bus remains stubbornly locked, with the driver nowhere to be found. We are sad. And sweaty, and hungry, and annoyed about losing. This is not what we need. But we finally get on, and fed, and changed, and we're off to the airport, where the idea is that we'll leave earlier than planned, which means getting home earlier than planned, which is always nice, especially since it's New Year's Eve.
However, once we get to the airport, we discover that the President's Party, who we're flying with, is still going by the original schedule, and has gone back to their hotel to change and hang out for a while before going to the airport. So we're stuck on the buses, at the airport, next to the airplane, for a good two hours. At least that way we didn't need to worry too much about the equipment truck showing up late with all our luggage.
At long last, the President's Party arrives, and we're allowed to board the plane. So we do. And then we sit there. After about 30 minutes of sitting there, the pilot announces that because we're a charter flight, we have lowest priority for fuel, so we're still waiting for the fuel truck to come. Never mind that the plane was sitting there for HOURS, with us next to it, even. And never mind that it's El Paso; how busy can the airport be? Anyways, after about an hour waiting on the plane, we finally get fueled up, and off we go.
The return trip is mercifully uneventful, landing included. But thanks to the delays in leaving, it reaches midnight while we're still unloading the plane (rembember the whole no-one-to-handle-the-luggage thing from our departure?). So we get to watch the fireworks from the very top of the Space Needle over the hill as we're unloading our own luggage from the plane. The sousas have a light-switch rave on one of the buses. And then we finally go home.
So there you have it. The epic story of the Sun Bowl trip. What fun it was.
In honor of this being New Year's Eve, and since I already posted the story of the Rose Bowl trip, I thought I'd now post the story of the worst bowl trip ever: the 2002 Sun Bowl. Enjoy, and happy New Year's!
(Note that I originally wrote this in 2006. I've done some slight editing (mostly for clarity for non-HMB people), but almost all of the content is the same. I thought the contrast to my current writing style might be interesting.)
-----------------------------
So, the infamous Sun Bowl Trip of 2002. This probably should have been a sign to us that it was going to be our last bowl trip for a while.
It all started with us having to get to Dawghouse (band HQ) bright and early to catch our plane down to El Paso, where we'd then go to our practice facility to get some, y'know, practicing in. So we're all standing around yawning, waiting to leave for Boeing Field, when word comes down that our flight is delayed until a little after noon. Now, this is a charter flight, and there are generally few good reasons for charter flights to be delayed. I never actually heard the official explanation, but the two main theories, as I recall, were that the pilot needed a mandatory rest period that kept us from leaving on time, and that the pilot needed a refresher course on the plane. While the first is probably more likely, the second definitely fits what happened later better. (Ed: Since writing this, I've also heard a third theory that the pilot was drunk. This also fits.)
I forget the exact order in which things happened next, but we a) got some free time to go get breakfast and stuff, and b) had the day's practice rescheduled to before the plane flight (I think the practice came first, since I seem to recall some bitching about practicing at 9 in the morning, but I could be mistaken there). In and of itself, that doesn't sound ALL that bad, but recall what we normally travel in. Yeah, so we practiced in the morning, before a plane flight, in official ToC (Ed: dress shoes, black slacks, and polyester purple polo). Wasn't that fun.
So the plane finally arrives, and we depart for Boeing Field. After unloading our bags and piling them at the bottom of the conveyor belt (yeah, no fancy people-to-deal-with-our-luggage for us... but at least we didn't have to actually put them in the plane ourselves), we get on the plane, and away we go. The flight down is a little bumpy, as I recall, but uneventful, for the most part. Until, that is, the landing.
During normal landings, the ideal angle between the wings and the ground is just about 0 degrees. In this landing, it felt like that angle was about 30 degrees. I'm sure it was less, but that's what it felt like. Now, you're probably thinking that it would be difficult to get more than one set of wheels down in an attitude like that, and you'd be right to think that. In fact, it's probably for the best, since a second set of wheels on the ground would almost certainly have to be the nose wheel, which would likely put the wingtip, the nose, or both, below ground level, which is not necessarily a tenable situation for a plane attempting to keep complete structural integrity. On the other hand, only one set of wheels on the ground isn't a particularly stable configuration, either. So here we are, careening down the runway on one wheel. And I use the verb "careen" advisedly, with consideration of the "weaving back and forth" part of the definition. So another way to rephrase the previous sentence would be to say, "So here we are, weaving back and forth down the runway on one wheel".
If that sounds a bit nerve-racking, it was.
But obviously we didn't die, so we got off the plane, all wheels safely on the ground and stopped, and headed into the terminal, where a mariachi band put on a bit of a concert and dance for us, which was one of the about three bright spots on the trip. After the band was finished, we headed out to the buses to go to dinner. Suddenly, copious amounts of thick white smoke started pouring out from under our bus (and here, by "our", I mean the clarinets and sousas, as I will also mean in the future). Naturally, the driver got off to assess this alarming situation, which necessitated opening the door, thereby letting some of the -very bad smelling, as it turned out- smoke onto the bus. Apparently, the problem wasn't major, since he got back on and the smoke stopped, but this was still not a particularly encouraging development. However, the bus made it just fine to our dinner location, which was an excellent steakhouse. This steakhouse was the second bright spot on the trip, since not only was the food delicious, but they had karaoke, and the senior staff did a rendition of "Mustang Sally", with Chris Chapman, one of our grad assistant directors, on kickass lead vocals, once again confirming that he's just about the coolest person ever. Plus, I understand there were buffalo wandering around.
After dinner, we were off to our hotel, which was the final bright point of the trip, because the rooms were pretty damn cool, too. They were more apartments than hotel rooms, with a living room with a hide-a-bed, a kitchen (with a dishwasher!), a bedroom and bathroom downstairs, and a bedroom and bathroom upstairs (yes, there was an upstairs). Our luggage and large instruments had been transported separately, so the lobby was entirely full of bags and cases. And by entirely, I mean stacked up, and barely leaving walkways to the front desk for us to get our room keys. It was quite amusing.
The next morning, we were off to our practice facility, which turned out to be a high school stadium with dead grass and barely-visible lines and hashes. If you're thinking that this doesn't sound conducive to a good practice, you'd be right once again. Plus, there was a freezing cold wind which cut right through bibs (Ed: bright yellow vests worn while marching to enhance the director's visibility of the formations, with a big pocket on the front for music and charts. They're so ugly that they're actually pretty awesome) and warm clothing, and it even started snowing. I don't care that is was late December, we were in TEXAS. It's not supposed to snow in TEXAS. Really, this whole trip just is more proof that Texas sucks.
Anyways, by the end of practice, it had warmed up to about 70 degrees and sunny, so that was nice, at least, and meant that we wouldn't be completely miserable at the Battle of the Bands, which is where we were off to next. Theoretically, at least. About halfway to the Battle, our bus comes to a VERY abrupt stop with a loud bang, having just rear-ended the car in front of us. And naturally, it can't exactly leave the scene of the accident, so we clarinets and sousas unload the entire bus and cram onto the two or three other buses that have stopped to wait for us. Of course, our buses are usually pretty full, so most of us are either sitting on laps, or in the aisle. It's terrific fun, really.
But we finally get to the Battle of the Bands. And when we do, we find the Purdue band waiting for us, along with... not the rest of OUR band. Which, given that they went speeding away after we had our little accident, is somewhat puzzling and just a bit concerning, since they should have arrived at the site well before us. But we gamely pile off the buses and dance to cadences when it's our turn to play, since while we do have the percussion section, most of the brass are missing, and as much as we woodwinds hate to admit it, they are kinda necessary. Fortunately, about halfway through our third cadence, the missing half of the band comes tearing out of the building we're performing next to, having run all the way from their buses parked on the far side through said building. Therefore, we can finally get on with demolishing Purdue's band once again, which admittedly had gotten a bit better since the Rose Bowl, but was still a bit stiff.
Afterwards, and after a few hours free time, we're off to dinner at some Mexican place with the Purdue band, where the food is crappy and definitely NOT all-you-can-eat, as promised. In general, the whole thing pretty much sucks. But then, that is essentially in line with the whole trip...
Finally, it's Game Day. We lose, which bites. At least I don't have to want to murder Cody Pickett for being a coward this time. (Ed: At the Holiday Bowl, Cody Pickett, our QB, ran out of bounds on fourth down a yard from the first down marker to end our attempt at a comeback. One yard. Fourth down. No, I'm not still bitter, why do you ask?) We head back out to the buses for dinner, and while everyone ELSE can get in and change and eat, the clarinet/sousa bus remains stubbornly locked, with the driver nowhere to be found. We are sad. And sweaty, and hungry, and annoyed about losing. This is not what we need. But we finally get on, and fed, and changed, and we're off to the airport, where the idea is that we'll leave earlier than planned, which means getting home earlier than planned, which is always nice, especially since it's New Year's Eve.
However, once we get to the airport, we discover that the President's Party, who we're flying with, is still going by the original schedule, and has gone back to their hotel to change and hang out for a while before going to the airport. So we're stuck on the buses, at the airport, next to the airplane, for a good two hours. At least that way we didn't need to worry too much about the equipment truck showing up late with all our luggage.
At long last, the President's Party arrives, and we're allowed to board the plane. So we do. And then we sit there. After about 30 minutes of sitting there, the pilot announces that because we're a charter flight, we have lowest priority for fuel, so we're still waiting for the fuel truck to come. Never mind that the plane was sitting there for HOURS, with us next to it, even. And never mind that it's El Paso; how busy can the airport be? Anyways, after about an hour waiting on the plane, we finally get fueled up, and off we go.
The return trip is mercifully uneventful, landing included. But thanks to the delays in leaving, it reaches midnight while we're still unloading the plane (rembember the whole no-one-to-handle-the-luggage thing from our departure?). So we get to watch the fireworks from the very top of the Space Needle over the hill as we're unloading our own luggage from the plane. The sousas have a light-switch rave on one of the buses. And then we finally go home.
So there you have it. The epic story of the Sun Bowl trip. What fun it was.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Update
Beware. I was concerned with maintaining the balance between finals and Christmas, baking and hosting, sickness and relaxation, not the triumph of one over the other.
Do you remember when Christmas was a simple, uncomplicated thing you could enjoy and leave behind like Christmas lights? Is memory what we perceived or what we want? What do kids think? They concern themselves with the states of fun and not, good and bad. Isn't their perception simple? Doesn't it have to be?
I will return.
(Bonus points to whoever can identify the source material for this. Super extra bonus points for whoever figures out how that connects to why I didn't link to this post on Facebook.)
Do you remember when Christmas was a simple, uncomplicated thing you could enjoy and leave behind like Christmas lights? Is memory what we perceived or what we want? What do kids think? They concern themselves with the states of fun and not, good and bad. Isn't their perception simple? Doesn't it have to be?
I will return.
(Bonus points to whoever can identify the source material for this. Super extra bonus points for whoever figures out how that connects to why I didn't link to this post on Facebook.)
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