Cool.
Scary.
Freaky.
I have always thought of stories like these as those that can make you feel awfully small. Those that could put it all into perspective.
For as advanced as our space and research programs have become, we don’t know much of even 1% of what lurks out there among the stars…
Feel small.
Places like this DO exist.. Some may be alarmed by it becuse, to them, it means the government KNOWS something we don’t. Others may be calmed since we don’t know what the government knows, they are ready. All in your point of view.
But I was amazed that their let this NPR reporter in and that such an in depth report was conducted..
From the NPR story:
A big American flag hangs from the ceiling, and shelves packed with stuff stand so tall that looking up makes me dizzy.
“We have the capability, if something bad happens, that we can intervene in a positive way, but then we don’t ever want to have to do that. So it’s kind of a strange place,” says Burel. “But we would be foolish not to prepare for those events that we could predict might happen.”
The Strategic National Stockpile got its start back in 1999, with a budget of about $50 million. Since then, even though the details aren’t public, it’s clear that it has amassed an incredible array of countermeasures against possible security threats.
The inventory includes millions of doses of vaccines against bioterrorism agents like smallpox, antivirals in case of a deadly flu pandemic, medicines used to treat radiation sickness and burns, chemical agent antidotes, wound care supplies, IV fluids and antibiotics.
This article comes from the DAILY BEAST.. It’s weird. The lifestyles of the rich and famous and sex obsessed and just EYES WIDE SHUT kind of creepy..
From the BEAST:
Tickets for most New York parties cost $300 for couples who are Killing Kittens members, a private community for “the world’s discerning sexual elite,” according to its website. The standard entry fee for “single” women is $150, but tickets for festivities in the Hamptons cost $100 more ($400 for couples and $250 for single women)—and with good reason, Lee told me.
This article comes from the DAILY BEAST.. It’s weird. The lifestyles of the rich and famous and sex obsessed and just EYES WIDE SHUT kind of creepy..
From the BEAST:
Tickets for most New York parties cost $300 for couples who are Killing Kittens members, a private community for “the world’s discerning sexual elite,” according to its website. The standard entry fee for “single” women is $150, but tickets for festivities in the Hamptons cost $100 more ($400 for couples and $250 for single women)—and with good reason, Lee told me.
Call me a soccer dad. Actually my wife and Iare both soccer parents now. We don’t have the mini van.. we don’t really yet know what we have gotten ourselves into .. we are awash in fundraiser tickets and rule books about coaching.. but we did it. We made the leap.
WE WILL COACH A SOCCER TEAM.
While we are told by all that it’s the pre-K and K level, and that scoring does not matter and don’t even keep it, we know parents will. We know there will be trials and tribulations that come with the game… parents yelling a bit too much, getting a bit too involved in a game that should just be fun for people at a lower level of knowledge. We know that.
And even with the acknowledgement that sometimes it will not be easy to quell our own nerves, it is worth it. Worth it because my son is very enthusiastic knowing mom and dad will be a whistle away..
My wife and I have long believed that it was a good thing to be involved with our son’s education life as much as possible. As he gets older and makes his way through the strange twisted world of Pink Floyd style education at the hands of paid professionals, we will be as involved as we can. PTO meetings.. teacher conferences.. all of that stuff. And yes, soccer.
So we dive deep, head first, into the world of post-5-year-old parenting. There will be scary moments. Last night’s initial soccer meeting was scary for me – but moments that will come with joys and laughter. And memories to last.
Don’t get me wrong, though, I will not over romanticize the fact that, at times, we will become tired with 7pm weeknight practices and all day events on Saturdays…
But, dear Watson, this is just the beginning. Along road to hoe indeed.
I started writing a book about parenting four years ago. I wanted to chronicle the first five years of life and how it hits a parent. I did not finish the book–life went so fast I stopped having time to write it. But I am considering finishing it up and making it finalized …
After soccer season I, though… .if Idid not have time before I don’t think I’ve seen anything yet!
The road begins with a tiny soccer jersey and a group of fun kids who have the world ahead of them. The best thing as a coach of such an age group we can do? Encourage them to be kind, laugh, and just enjoy every moment of life.
You know, the things adult forget to get as they age.
150 years later–after the town was formed–a celebration will take place in a nearby town. Centralia does not have a location to house hunderds of people for an event.. Centralia is gone. Wiped off the map by a mine fire that started decades ago. It has become a tourist site, Graffiti Highway is seemingly known worldwide, and horror movies have been based off of the goings on.
And those who have read this website for any given time will know: I was born and raised in the little town that died until my family moved due to the mine fire issue in the 1980s..
This weekend, the town is set to come together once more–the last time for many people in their 70s and 80s to see friends. I expect for a lot of people who I know deep down never got over the death of their town, this will be a nostalgic mix of sadness and laughter..
Happy 150th Centralia. The town that was.
I caught this meme tonight on my Facebook news feed..
I have had sleep paralysis before–never this thankfully.
The old hag syndrome, or whatever you’d call it, is something I never want to go through.. never want to experience.
I know people who have, however.
You may think it’s fiction … until it happens to you.
The summer stopped being fun lately.. Lots of strange roller coaster moments of potential disaster..
Firefighters rescued eight people who got stuck on a roller coaster 100 feet above the ground in Oklahoma city. Rescue is complete at Frontier City with no injuries.
Last month, artist Aaron Chervenak drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Nevada to finally take the love for his smartphone to the next level by marrying it at a small wedding chapel.
The future is coming fast. This may be laughed at.. but in ten years we will be marrying robots .. and a whole new non human rights campaign will be waged..
This was an alley with houses in Centralia in 1986 when we moved out. The alley as it exists today looks very different. (at Centralia Coal Fire)
The Matrix moment..
Ever have one?
I did yesterday..
Let me begin by saying this: I recently had a chance to view ‘virtual reality’ in my friend’s headset. It was amazing. I was traveling in a car with Lebron James… I even played basketball with him. The footage inside the headset is unbelievable.. when you take the piece off, your brain so convinced that what it was seeing was real, actually feels a bit bad about being back in the ‘reality’ of this world—you know, the real one?
Yesterday while walking in a hallway at work in the basement level of my building—a location I have seen and traveled to countless times through the years, I had a moment.
A weird moment.. What was floating through my mind was already interesting.. I wondered, as I looked at the monotone colors of the floor and walls, if a retired person I knew came back for a day, how startled she’d be that everything was the same as it was when she left almost a decade ago. And that is when it hit me.. For a brief moment—very brief—the hallway walls became very 3D looking.. the floor looked very, very real. For a moment in time, I felt like I was walking in a virtual reality world, like everything that was “real” was only real virtually..
Yes, indeed. For that brief time—literally seconds of my life—everything was so real and vibrant. Like for the first time in years, my mind noticed I was alive. That things were around me. That or, perhaps, I felt like Truman Burbank from the Truman Show when he discovered that his entire life had been a prop and set for some multiseason television program watched by billions around the world. Of course, I have no delusion of grandeur, I am fully aware that my life has little importance in the big picture scheme of things. But then again, many other reality ‘stars’ lives don’t either but they just don’t realize it.
Anyway, all of that said, it was startling for that time. The Matrix moment, when you finally realize the computer program you’re within … you see the controls, almost.
The takeaway, after seeing the virtual reality headset scene, is that the reality of what was in front of me looked so similar and felt the same.
I snapped out of it as quick as I snapped into it. For that moment, that brief time, I was alarmed with how vibrant and almost fake looking the scene in front of me.. And then everything immediatley become dull and flat again. Everything lost that edge, and the portal of awareness I entered in came back to the lifeless walls of depression that office environments to many times exhibit.
So now what do I strive for? Another Matrix moment. Perhaps one that lasts longer—the staying power could help me search out more ‘reality’ than what I had just witnessed.
Yes, now, I will be searching for reality.
Whatever reality is anyway.
It indeed is a sea change.. Who could have predicted this about 10 years ago.. or heck even five years ago:
U.S. adults spent 10 hours, 39 minutes a day consuming media in the first quarter of 2016. That’s up a full hour from the first quarter of 2015, and it’s thanks to a substantial increase in smartphone and tablet usage, according to Nielsen’s Q1 2016 Total Audience Report.
Reading this amazing book about autism allied NEOTRIBES by Steve Silberman.. This is my favorite page his far.. I have family with autism who exemplify the descriptions to a tee ..
For those who care or understand, there may soon be an announcement that shreds the old world of information and replaces it with a new one..
“This is by far the most exciting thing that has happened in particle physics over the last three decades. If this hint of new physics is confirmed - something that could happen within just a few weeks, or possibly even within days - it is difficult to state the importance of such a discovery. It would be bigger than the detection of the Higgs boson, which was just confirmation of what was already known.
"If the bump is real, we are about to start writing a whole new chapter in the history of fundamental physics. It is impossible to imagine where this could lead.”
The biggest since Higgs? The biggest since Einstein? The biggest ever?
The future is waiting.
We are finally catching up.
The latest solar image is completely spotless for the second time this month..
Something perhaps even scarier than giant CMEs…a sign without a spot.
Despite hype, doom and gloom, the maximum hasn’t been that much of a max..
And the minimum set for 2019 may just come a bit early..
Love the idea or hate the idea.. We have been talking about it as a future shock possibility for years. A time when robotics have taken over the manufacturing and service economies..
I have a strange and silly notion that the wage floor could actually be quite a positive thing. Maybe that’s the part of me that actually does see glasses half full from time to time..
Imagine a future where your safety net is there.. Where you can produce things you want to? Work where you to? Be who you want to be..
All with a set wage floor.
And where the absence of such a floor wild lead to a revolution, panic on streets, and mass violence and chaos due to an ever changing economic platform that leaves millions (if not more) without work..?
A wage floor vs the ….the possibility ..
Which would you prefer?
The park is in my back yard, almost literally..We get there as many times a year as we can. This year, with my son Ayden being 5 and going on 25 in his intelligence, he has finally opened his world up to more there.. The rides. The kfun. The kfanstasy. The kfood? Well he is still a bit picky..
But seriously.. let me just say: Knoebels may be the single happiest, best, and most amazing place on earth.
The little secret 90 years young, tucked away in the mountains of the coal region, is quite possibly the only place on earth where I forget troubles for a bit… where life as it is – out there – is on hold.
You can ride rides. If you want. Play golf. Maybe. Eat food. Whichever.. get soaking wet.. or just drive a slow train into the woods …
Whatever. The floor is yours.
I sort of am half and half… I want to tell the world how amazing Knoebels is. But also , sometimes, just keep it a secret …
But the secret is out.
Knoebels.
IT’S THE PLACE TO BE IN THE NEW CENTURY.
How kind. How thoughtful..
People like me–those driving horrendous distances to and from work–will “reap the benefits” of the new plan.
But the privacy!?
You know.. “they” will know how many miles our cars are traveling!? They will be able to track our every move!? Oh they do already, anyway..
So here comes the dollars… and cents.. and senselessness of highway driving.
Live is an open lane into submission.
Live is a highway. I may not want to drive it all night long.
