Some Creative Philosophy

The Trick

There are times when everything "clicks" just right. When it is enough to watch the rain fall from inside the window. There is a comfort to present time itself and it is sufficient experience to satisfy the senses and the being as well. It doesn't really matter what it is. A snowflake falling from the roof cuts into your field of vision and reminds you of good times. You walk across the carpet in your socks and recall playing with your brother and family. You smell eggs frying in a pan in the and hear someone say "good morning". The communication values are high and there is no suppression, no threats, no bad lingering news on your mind. You are secure in yourself and what you know from now and till as long as you'd like. There's a lot of this for many people in childhood. Life and people and whatever looks over us, helps and supports us. The "trick" is in the creation. A bad particle is a bad particle. You win the grand slam in tennis and your nose itches and you can't forget what she said to you before the match. Life looks and feels bitter no matter what occurs. Snowflakes fall in possibly the prettiest array in several dozen winters and settle on the trees and ground and it irritates your senses somehow. Nothing can be right. A missed swing from forty years ago in a playground baseball game soured any possibility for happiness for anyone anywhere ever. This is bad creation. It can be done on purpose or in error, but the intention still has to be bad or it won't have much force. This is the stuff of creative suppression. It's downright awful!

So the "trick" is in putting out top notch creative particles and attacking the suppressive sources as well.



Remembering the Winters in Vermont

Their desperate situation and the view of the extremely cold and lonely OP16d port field started Jim thinking about a cold winter in Vermont when he had to cram for finals. The future refused to admit any warmth or humor for him. It was all hard work and suffering, followed by endless cold and ultimate failure. He was forced to review his life and compromise his hopes for success. He could remember nodding off and waking in the morning still dressed and under his blanket. Heshy had come in and brought coffee and it was snowing heavily outside the window. It was going to be alright. Heshy would help him through it. One thing at a time and they would be done and ready. A little chickadee flew over and settled outside on the window sill and looked toward them and then flew away. It was so darned beautiful out there. What in the world was wrong with him. He was in the best school in the Eastern USA. He was young and had everything going for him, great friends and family. This was how it was in life. Sometimes you really had to work hard to prepare for the rougher times in life. This was school. He expected one day to have to face real tests like these.
And here he was and here was Heshy himself with the answers. "Whoever designed this facility deserved an award", he thought as Heshy brought in a fresh pot of coffee.

Kind of Cold Lately

Handling the Cold

Just pulling out of a really rough one today. Had the pets in last night, expecting extreme cold that never really got that bad. The forecast was for minus 26 or 28 or something, so I brought them in. It got down to maybe minus 13 or so, which was not quite so life threatening. So I missed sleep again for about the third night. I was up at about 5:50 from the dog barking to go out, and that was that. There was a faint light of dawn in the east south east about 6:17 when I headed back in after setting the dog back in the garage and the cat with him. I had warmed the garage up to about 40 degrees or so, warm enough for the animals, and I set up the "milk house" heater to keep them warm in addition. I came back in, had breakfast and laid back down for about two hours. It was a good rest this time. I have to go back out now. It's about 7:13 in the evening and I started a wood fire in the wood stove. I have to check it.

OK - The dog - "Snuggles" seemed very comfortable and the cat - "Tina" was very playful, as usual. The wood fire was just about out and I closed the air vents so that the fire would go completely out relatively safely. That's the problem with burning wood for fuel. It's cheaper, but it requires continual monitoring for safety. After heating the garage for about 10 minutes, the temperature rose to about 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Without a strong wind, and with the electric heater going, it should stay a bit above freezing till tomorrow morning. The current forecast from NOAA is a low of -22 tonight. This is about five degrees warmer than last night's forecast which never really got below minus 13, so we'll chance it. Last winter it was good for minus 20 with the electric heater on. This is fine except for the cost! Heating with electricity is very expensive in Vermont. Still a few cold nights is a cheap enough price to have to pay for living in probably one of the most beautiful places in the US. The people up here are very aware of the values Vermont offers. They also don't like it to be so very cold in the winter. 

Coming Clean - Almost

It was time to get out of this mess. There was nothing left to do but get back to where he was before all of this started. For Nomi's sake and for Larry's and his own, he had to make a clean cut away from all the nonsense. This meant fronting up to what the Vulture actually had on him. These silly false salvage operations. These games they'd been playing had been wrong and that was all there was to it. That would mean the end of his career. He might be able to get Heshy off by taking all the blame himself, but that was it. All the college, all the technical training, all the time on their salvage missions, was over for him. He had to do it. He sat down and started to report his emergency. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday..." , he began. "Hold it. What are you doing?" Heshy interrupted. "I'm sending out an emergency call", Jim quickly answered. "What are you going to say? How will you explain our being here?" Heshy insisted. "I'm just going to tell them the truth Heshy. It's time to own up to all the wrong decisions I've made." He was resigned to get it all out on the table. "Not so fast Jim, I'm part of this too you know." Jim dismissed this. "I'll tell them that you just did what I told you to. You had no idea what was going on." Heshy looked right at him. "That's not true Jim, and If that's what you're doing, I'm not going to let you take all the blame yourself." Jim had forgotten all that. Now he realized that it wasn't just him and it wasn't quite as simple as he thought. Something had intervened and it wasn't going to let Jim's life be totally destroyed. "Tell them we got raided and marooned here." Just then his mayday message was answered. OP16d this is the Great Beyond we received your mayday. What's going on?" A nearby ship was on their screen. 

An Invitation to Dance

                                                               An Invitation to Dance

Wheelock Technical Center for Near Space Exploration was located just west of the main campus of what was once Dartmouth College. It was called "East Coast" by the undergraduate cadets which distinguished it from "West Coast",  the only other major Space Exploration Academy in the US.

Both Jim Wallace and Larry Herreschoff were juniors at the academy. This gave them a special altitude among the freshman and sophomores. They had been close friends since their freshman orientation week, finding their major study concentration areas similar and the total "disorientation" they were experiencing  solid enough reasons to form a crew of two against the confusion. The concept of "Freshman Disorientation Week" would continue to bring smiles many years into the future, as would the way freshmen, particularly, would attempt to mimic the attitudes, jargon, and even the study habits of the upper classmen. At times, Jim and "Heshy" would play with this, making up expressions that they would feed to the freshmen. "Rare" was a classic example of theirs. "That's really rare George. Great work." Shortly it would be all over the school. It was not a particularly kind thing to do and would get them into trouble from time to time. It was not "super sharp" as Jim and Heshy had picked up when they were freshmen, and who knew where that had come from. The best of us surely harbor a cruel intention or two somewhere. This one belonged to Jim. He didn't really want to be studying engineering and navigation in this school, or any school for that matter. It was his father's idea and Jim protested this in his own way.

Today they had cooked up what they hoped would lighten up a very heavy class on emergency communications with a bit of "rare" and "super sharp" communication technology of their own. Heshy, who was very gifted in most of the technology they studied had imported a new holograph program which had been designed to fit a social "meet your match" commercial system. In this case he was able to interface some of the girls in the class with both himself and Jim on a "shall we dance" get to know you invitation program. Girls and guys would appear dancing the latest steps to current popular music all smiles and fun. It was very well done, and considering the context, very funny. What they didn't realize was that the lab that they were using for class had been wired to record and publicize all pertinent notes into one corner of the viewing deck. This was common sense when you thought about it. It allowed all members of the lab as well as other classes in the school to view and comment on another's notes if there were enough people interested in an item. The "rarity" and "super sharpness" of the little dance with swirling glowing dresses and laughing girls and guys definitely worked to attract more attention than the pair of them had intended. Heshy couldn't understand it at first when "sure I'd love to dance with you" and "when and where can we meet" started coming in by the dozens and then hundreds. The stir in the lab with laughter and comments coming out of the cubicles and growing louder soon answered their questions. They had a hit alright. One that was carefully reviewed by the Dean of Students who, if he hadn't had a sense of humor and an appreciation for good communication technology would have handed out a serious suspension to the two of them. As it was, with all of them viewing the recording, all they could do was laugh at the whole thing. It was a very clever program and very well integrated into the emergency communication class.  

Reflections from a Distant Outpost

Jim could see Nomi's face reflected in the polythermo window. Suddenly It was like one of those special moments when you could feel a heightened importance, like before a major examination at the academy or arriving for an ultra important meeting. Jim couldn't quite define the sensation.  He thought about what she was experiencing and he thought about how far away they were from anything familiar. "We're lucky they let us go." Jim said and turned to her. "I know", she returned. "It's a tough situation, but we'll get out of it." Jim was reassuring and Nomi appreciated his effort. 

What they didn't quite understand was that they had just experienced a primary recognition node. Like an eclipse of the sun across a planet, millions and more persons had moved through a sort of spiritual refection point, a punctuation, not unlike an alignment of planets or the sweep of comets around a star in an unusually symmetrical pattern. It could have been some great astronomer hundreds of years ago, a Newton or a Galileo or even someone thousands of years before or more, watching the stars and understanding their motions, whose enlightenment echoed through time and touched the human spirit. 

Polar Vortex

I took a course in meteorology several years ago. I did quite well at it. We visited a national weather service station which was valuable experience. My mentor for the course was a well known tv weather program personality. I taught the course for many years in high schools. We had weather stations installed on the roofs. Why all this background? I never heard of a polar vortex - or not that I remember. It might be in my notebook. It could be that a polar vortex simply didn't visit this far south in all this time - about 12 years. Be that as it may, wow, it isn't the 5 degrees or so, so much as the howling winds and the 30 knot gusts. We have minus twenty, even minus thirty around here often, but it never hits this hard!
Whatever you want to call it, it certainly isn't the Beach Boys!
Take cover! Wear lots of extra clothing! Have plenty of extra heating back offs in case of failures. Stay warm and keep your sense of humor! All you need for hot chicken soup is a can of soup, some pieces of wood, a sheltered place away from the wind and some matches!

Even Colder!

The National Weather Service had a forecast which included minus 27 degrees Fahrenheit for the low last night. I doubt it got below minus 12, but that was cold enough for an emergency decision. I brought the pets inside and left the electric heater going in the garage. This morning at about 8:00 am, the thermometer just inside the side door read about 33 degrees; too close for comfort! I barely slept and I'm still tired. The cat was a distraction - she plays with everything, which is cute most of the time, but sometimes not when there are stresses.
She's usually a help though and seems to be very sensitive and helpful during stress times. The dog stayed in the bathroom and so I didn't have my usual shower and slept with my clothes on as well, expecting minus 27 degrees. So I was too hot and had to get up to remove clothing. I also itched and some sores on my hands and neck irritated the heck out of me. Still, I managed to sleep about 2 hours.
It all worked out today when I napped a couple of hours and had a good breakfast. I was really "keyed out" on an apparent whole track perception! Wow!


OP 16d

OP 16d was an abandoned observation post with a still intact and workable landing dock. It allowed careful close manoevering and tight "lash down" for the ship. They could all safely and comfortably transfer to the main building. Thirty minutes or so and the whole thing was up to temperature and all the power was flowing and reporting "pass" on the warm up system check. OP 16d deserved some kind of design effiency awared for its insulation. Jim would read up on its history. About three inches of bulkhead was all that separated the interior from a near total dark vacuum outside. Much of it was clear poly cyclo hc (hydrocarbon) triple layered thermoplast or clear pc thermo as it was usually called. It appeared totally clear, but was not, of course, and was aluminized on the interior side of each "clear" layer to prevent radiation from within the station. It appeared fully reflective from without and wide open clear from inside. The opague alloy walls followed similar construction designs, vacuum insulation and front surface reflective metal ion deposition against radiation heat losses.
"What do they do here?", Nomi asked indredulously. "They make all kinds of obervations and standby for emergencies like ours!", Jim answered with humor that quickly became gratitude and wonder of his own at the foresight. "Do they know we're here?", she asked.  "They will soon, about eight hours or so.". Jim answered. "Where did they go?" Nomi's questions were totally normal and in this case they served to bring Jim out of a state of semi-shock as he reoriented to his work and training. "They usually have periodic patrols. We're spread fairly thin out here. I have to go over their log. I'll see what kind of messages they left."

Getting through the night without freeze damage!

At about 8 pm, I put two propane heaters on in the garage and drove the temperature up from about 38 degrees to about 48 degrees. The electric "milk house" heater is still on since its very safe to leave on over night - even with the pets in there. If it falls over, it goes off. I don't like to leave it on, but I feel confident that the dog will bark loud enough to wake me if there's a problem. Last winter, we tested it to twenty below outside and it still was above freezung inside in the morning. Good insulation and the milk house heater is efficient, albeit a bit expensive. It might still be worth the investment to heat the garage properly, with a large propane heater, and just keep it above 40 all the time in there. I think the quote was 1300 dollars. The real difference would be maintaining the temperature automatically with less worry about fire.


Dance of the Deep - continued

"What is it Nomi?" Jim was surprised to see her at his cabin door. He was a lot more surprised to see the Vulture behind her with some kind of weapon at her back.  "We simply have to do what they want and they'll let us go", she offered weakly and matter of factly. "Ouch, that hurts", she added. It must have been less than an hour later that Jim, Heshy, and Nomi found themselves in the "dingy" with barely enough fuel to make the nearest port. "No telecommunication Heshy, can't you do something to strectch the range?" Jim was seriously worried now. They were too far out to handle most emergencies, even simple ones. He began to understand his job better now, from the other side. He began to understand what serious matters their little  "jokes" had been, and he began get a very faint insight into how he had gotten them into this situation in the first place.